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PRESENTED FT 






THE 
NARRATIVE 



OF 



THE DELUGE 




LARIMORE, N. D. 

PRINTED BY H. V. ARNOLD 

1914 



t 



I 



1 ^#~&0Ll Jfcvovv\ V A/v\vo*n. 



rni 



NARRATIVE 

OF &S~& 



THE DELUGE 

WITH 
ITS DUAL TEXT AND A CRITICAL 
COMMENTARY 



/ ? 'It is just as undesirable to retain an erroneous ides 
as it is to accept one."— Wm. Newton Clarke. 




LA RIM ORE. N. D. 

POINTED BY H. V. ARNOLD 

1914 



'Y*9 






This pamphlet will be found to be a unique 

work of its kind. It is not a sale work, and only 

about 54 copies have been printed. 



Publishers Booklet No. 17. 



Gift 

Author 

OCT 23 \m 



PREFACE 



Where a person chances to take an interest in some subject^ 
even if their opportunities of meeting with literature bearing 
upon the matter are very limited, in the course of thirty or 
forty years, if interest in the topic be kept up, a rather wide 
fund of information en that subject will have been gathered. 
The writer's attention v?as drawn to the subject about the year 
1866, while still of the age of a high school boy. This was 
, in Houston County, Minn., and came by reading the disserta- 
tions and notes on the Flood in the Cottage Bible. Early in 
1872, being then back in Connecticut, Clarke's Commentary 
was met with and his comments on the story of the Flood was 
perused with deep interest, all unaware however, as to how 
far behind the knowledge of the times such works as those 
mentioned had already drifted. It was not until the last years 
oi the seventies that any critical literature on the subject began 
to come in our way, such as Hugh Miller's two chapters relative 
to the Deluge. 

The present work represents the literary gatherings of nearly 
fifty years. Altho the writer has not regarded the story of 
the Deluge as being at all historical since the later seventies, 
this work should not be construed as being any attack upon 
the views of those who feel constrained to accept the story as 
historical. It is rather a treatise on the changeful opinions 
held by different generations in relation to the matter; on the 
controversies that the subjeci engendered; on the curiosities of 
the topic; also plain statements, mostly in the language of 
others, showing why the majority of students of science de- 
cline to accept the deluge story as a narrative of facts. 

Let it be borne in mind that the scientific view of the sub- 
ject is infiltrating the minds of the students of the universities, 
colleges, theological seminaries, and even the most intelligent 
boys among high school pupils. 



INDEX 



Introductory 5--16 

The Biblical Story of the Flood (text) 17-25 
Critical Commentary and Discussions — 

1. General Remarks 26 

2. The Traditional View 85 

3. The Sons of God, etc-^-Flood Chronology 48 

4. Mount Ararat 59 

5. Some Old-Time Views of the Deluge 64 

6. The Era of the Commentators 74 

7. The Controversy Over a Universal Deluge 92 

8. An Era of Compromise 108 

9. Anthropology and Modern Thought 123 
10. The Babylonian Deluge Legends 137 

Appendix— 

Prof. Wright's Theory oi the Deluge, 153 -Remarks and 
Criticisms, 155 — The Vaiian Theory of the Deluge, 159 — 
The Mammoth and the Flood, 160 — Discussion on Siberian 
Remains, 161 — Sir J. W. Dawson on Deluge Traditions, 
165 — Remarks, 166 — Huxley on Continuity of Nature, 167, 



THE 
NARRATIVE OF THE DELUGE 



INTRODUCTORY. 



HISTORICAL criticism does not readily accept 
the legendary stories in Genesis and in the book 
of Exodus as beine in their nature historical* Those 
narratives are rather history idealized. Every nation 
that has ever had a literature includes in its beginning 
a traditionary period wherein fact and myth are to a 
greater or less extent, inextricably blended. 80 far as 
history teaches no nation is known to have sprung from 
a single family and their dependents, but rather from 
aggregations of clans and tribes, usually of the same 
stock. It is not thought, then, that from the standpoint 
of historical criticism that the Israelites could ever 
have formed any exception to the general rule. The 
ancient nations had their mythical ancestors to whom 
they attributed their primary origin. 

Historical criticism therefore endeavors to recon- 
struct the primitive history of the Hebrew people after 
this fashion: During the centuries preceding about 
1400 b. c, the desert country south of Palestine, to- 
gether with the Sinaiatic peninsula lying between the 
two gulfs at the head of the Red Sea, was occupied by 
nomadic tribes of the Semitic branch of the white race 
and who were kindred in some measure to the Amorites 
and Edomites. Their tribal god was Jahveb who was 
worshiped at Mt. Sinai. At this time a Semitic people 
called Hyksos or Shepherd Kings were in possession of 



THE NARRATIVE OF THE DELUGE 



Lower Egypt, having invaded and seized the govern* 
ment of that country. The occupation of the country 
by the Hyksos is presumed to have lasted about 2100 to 
1650 b, c. Sometime during this occupation some part 
of the Hebrew tribes were permitted to settle in the 
Nile delta territory, or Land of Goshen, because, it is 
thought, the Hyksos regarded them as a kindred Semite 
race. When the Egyptians of Upper Egypt or Theban 
kings succeeded in driving out the Hyksos and recov 
ering possession of the country, they seem to have re- 
garded the Hebrews as an alien people, being them 
selves of the Hamitic branch of the white race, and 
consequently they finally began oppressing them which 
caused (he oppressed to entetain thoughts of returning 
to the country of their fathers, which was not remote 
from the part of Fgypt in which they were settled. 

To what extent the traditional history of Moses can 
be accepted as authentic, may be uncertain. Having 
bad Home connection with the Egyptian Court, and a 
natural sympathy for his people under oppression, he 
and his brother Aaron may have incited them to 
assemble together with their movable belongings and 
depart in the order of a great caravan, and Moses may 
have returned from exile to act as leader and law- 
giver to this host of agriculturists and brick-makers. 
The miracles and prodigies attending the expdus are 
not to be regarded as historical, but rather as the gloss 
or reflections of priestly narrators who wrote several 
centuries afterwards. It is represented that the de- 
parting host took much spoil that belonged t© tbe 
Egyptians and on that account and alarm over their 
gathering, the Egyptian government may have sent an 
army after them, partly to punish aod partly to expel 



INTRODUCTORY 



them beyond the Egyptian frontier. As to the number 
of the outgoing Israelites, the earlier records are sup* 
posed to have stated that they comprised some 5000 
families, magnified into between two and three millions 
of people through errors of later copyist*. 

There is no certainty either as to the date of the 
Exodus or as to which of several was the particular 
Pharaoh of the Oppression. No Egyptian records have 
been discovered that throw any light on the matter. 
I>ates ranging from about 1550 to 13C0 B. c. have beeu 
assigoed to the Exodus On this point a theological text- 
book says: "From considerations as to where it would 
best fit in to what we know of Egyptian hiatory, the Ex- 
odus has been placed in various periods, and numerous 
Egyptian kings have figured at different times as the 
Pharaohs of the Oppression or the Exodus. Attmepta 
are also made to combine the Biblical chronology, 
which, however, affords no clear or certain data, with 
that of Egypt, which is also only approximately known. 
The results are naturally unsatisfactory. " 

The Jewish historian, Josephus, about a. d. 90, rather 
scouted there having been anything miraculous in the 
passage of the Ked Sea,'or its western arm called on maps 
the Gulf of Suez. The Egyptian frontier across the 
isthmus having a line of ramparts, it is thought that the 
Israelites may have turned to the head of the gulf and 
taking advantage of a wind that drove back the waters 
and laid the bottom bare, have crossed in that way and 
so avoided the fortified line. The account of the destruc- 
tion of Pharaoh and his pursuing army, in attempting 
to follow, is probably the gloss of a later age. Nothing 
known in Egyptian history, derived from the mouments 
or other sources, goes to confirm it. 



8 THE tfAKIUTlYE OF THE DELUGE 

_ — , , — , _ ^ 

The hiliy country, Palestine, was then occupied by 
tribes of Hamitic Canaanites who at different times 
hadi>een subjected to Egyptian and Babylonian influ- 
ences. They had walled towns, knew the use of metals 
&nd are said to have been more civilized than the host 
that had left Egypt. They are said to have had libra- 
ries in some of their towns and one of these places was 
calied the "Oity of Hoiks.'- They appear to have been 
governed by tribal chieftains, at times tributary to 
Egypt and Babylonia. They were Uaal worshippers, 
and of other deities, and their sacred groves, high 
places and pillars or standing stones, had came down to 
them from the Neolithic and Bronze ages. 

When the Israelites left Egypt they had no intention 
of trying to conquer the Oanaanites, entrenched in their 
walled towns. The forty years wandering in the wil* 
derness seems to be a reflection of the nomadic life to 
which the Hebrews returned. During this time Moses 
probably provided them a code of laws and regulations 
for worship. All codes of law are subject to change, 
alteration, revision, etc., by reason or the repeal or the 
dropping out of use of old laws and the enaction of new 
ones with the lapse of time and the needs of successive 
generations. Now the bulk of the Old Testament 
writings, as has been ascertained by modern biblical 
scholarship, belong to such periods as the later Jewish 
Monarchy, the Exile or Captivity, and the Return. 
The five books formerly ascribed to Moses belong to 
those periods, but were more or less based upon older 
writings and traditions. After several editings or re* 
dactions, involving changes, alterations and additions! 
materials in the books that date back to the tim.e &i 
Moses become ratlher un^ertaip. 



The Hebrews had a method of reckoning by genera- 
tions, a generation supposedly comprising forty years, 
regardless of chronological exactitude as applied to the 
succession of historic e Tents; thus David, Solomon and 
some other kings reigned through a generation or forty 
years each; Moses lived three generations or 120 years, 
and the use of the number forty occurs in other ways. 
This and other. considerations introduce an element of 
uncertainty into biblical chronology. 

The Amorites and Edomites and perhaps kindred 
bribes were sometimes at war with, each other. Taking 
advantage of these troubles, the Hebrews were enabled 
to take possession of part of the country east of the 
river Jordan and Dead Sea, and having gained a foot* 
hold there, they next preceded to begin the conquest of 
Palestine. Some sections were likely peacefully occu- 
pied and others taken by force under the leadership of 
Joshua, their general. It was but gradually that the 
conquest of the country was effected. The Hebrew* 
neither drove out nor extirpated the Canaanites but in 
iCOurse of time absorbed them into a common nation, 
also taking over their sacred places and probably many 
of their traditions. The books of Joshua and Judges 
.reflect memories or tradition* of the conquest and con- 
tinuance of tribal government. There was so little of 
national cohesion that Jerusalem, which became the 
Jewish capital under the kings, was not taken until the 
ceign of David, their second king (1055-1015 B. C. ) 
The amalgamation in Palestine of people of diverse 
origin would seem to account for occasional relapses 
from the worship of Jahveh and the retention under 
different kings of the high places and altars, where 
sacrifices were performed.. 



10 TfTE NAHRATIVK OF THE DJSLOGB 

The Jewish Monarchy lasted from about 1095 B. C,, t<* 
586 B. c, when Jerusalem was taken and sacked by 
Nebuchadnezzar and the principal part of the people 
borne away captive to Babylonia. There were two 
bearings away of the people captive, first, the principal 
people of Jerusalem, and afterward the agriculturalist* 
and common people generally, of Judea, only a misera- 
ble remnant of the n*ti©n being left in the country, 
This was the Exile or Captivity, or until the Return^ 
about 536 B. c. 

A considerable literature undoubtedly accumulated 
during the Jewish Monarchy. There are sixteen booki 
referred to by name in the old Testament writings that 
are now lost and others were produced during the Exile, 
Among the books of monarcbial times was one written 
in the southern or Judean kingdom about 850 B, c, 
and by an author, who, not being known, is called the 
Jehovist. A similar work, but somewhat variant from 
fche other, was produced in the northern or Israelite 
kingdom a generation later, or about 800 B. C, by a 
writer called the Elobiet. Both works contained He- 
brew narrative traditions and collections of laws that 
were supposed to be Mosaic. ; ..„,• '- v 

The five hooka collectively called the Pentateuch 
were until modern times quite generally ascribed to 
Moses, except part of the last chapter of Deuteronomy 
which records his death. The books are rather about 
Moses than containing anything implying authorship 
by him. The Book of Joshua added to the previous five, 
constftute what is called the Hexateuch. All six books 
before their separation originally constituted one vol* 
ume, both a History and Law Book. 



n$TTR0DUCTQR7 If. 



In regard to the composition of these books and how 
they came to be as they are, we shall Jet others tell in 
a series of extracts form their writings. The first is 
from a small book called "The Bible and Criticism/' 
by W. H. Bennett <fe W. K. Adeney, circulated in Great 
Britain and also in this country. It contains 94 pages 
and is an epitome of a larger work by the same authors 
which is used as a text-book in theological colleges. 

"At some time in the early Monarchy, say between 
#00 and 750 B. c, two independent collections were 
made of the laws and of the narratives concerning the 
history of Israel up to the death or Joshua. These 
collections are known as the Jehovistic Document, so 
called because it uses the Dirine Name Jehovah in 
Genesis, and denoted by the symbol J, and the Elohistie 
J)opument, so called because it uses the Divine Name 
Elohim in Genesis, and denoted by the symbol E. 

"In some instances the same narrative occurs in both 
documents in different forms. 

"Toward the close of the Monarchy, about 650 B. 6., 
these two documents were combined sp as to form * 
single work, JE. 

"Where the same narrative was found in both, the 
Compiler sometimes inserted both versions as separate 
narratiyes. e. g. the two apeounts of the expulsion of 
Hagar, Gen. xvi. 4-8. J; xxi. 8~?1, E. Sometimes, 
however, the compiler pieced together sentences and 
clauses from the two narratives so as to form a single 
connected story, e. g. the story of Joseph. JE included 
ihe Book of the Covenant, 

"A second edition of the Law was made about 650 
fhp. This second edition is Peut. xii.-^xTi; possibly 



}A2 THE KAREATIVK OF THE DELUOrB 

..other portion? of Deuteronomy were also included. 
-This document is denoted by 1>. Somewhat later, profe* 
ably during the Exile, D was enlarged and combined 
with J K, the editor adding various notes— .JED. The 
laws in I) are partly repeated or modified from those 
JUi E so that JED includes many laws twice over. 

"After the Exile, about 500 B. a, .a third edition of 
the Law and Hiatory was compiled in Babylonia. This 
is the. Priestly Code. <It ; included a revised version of 
.the history from the Creation onward, and numerous 
laws, very largely concerned with ritual, with the 
priesthood and their vestments, the tabernacle and its 
furniture, and the division of the land. Even the nar- 
ratives of this document are really legal material, case* 
law, or precedents. Thus the Priestly account of the 
.Creation, Gen. i. l--ii. 4a, is really an account of the 
institutipn of, the Law of the Sabbath. 

"This document is called P; it is partly based on the 
documents already mentioned, partly on custom and 
tradition; it also includes a code, the Law of Holiness, 
H, which was compiled during the Exile, or shortly 
before or after. Many of the narratives in P are mod- 
ified versions of narratives in JE. 

''Sometime qfter the Exile, .perhaps about 400 B. c, 
|he Priestly Code was combined with JED, the result 
.being our Hexateuch, i. e. the Pentateuch and Joshua. 

"Here again the editor Hometimes placed parallel 
accounts of the same event side by .side [meaning that 
they follow one another] as separate narratives, e\. g, 
the two Creation stories, Gen. i.-ii. 4a, P, and Gen. 
ii. 4b~25, J. Sometimes he pieced them together into 
£ single iiarratijre; tJnus tl\e story of the Flood |f a 



INTRODUCTORY i$ 



mosaic of sections from P and J.— Later on the Hexar 
teach was divided into the Pentateuch and Joshua, and 
-finally the Pentatencb was divided into the present 
-?e books. 

"There is no absolute proof that any part of the 
Pentateuch comes to U9 from Moses, but it is quite 
possible that some sections may be based on material 
.which either originated with him or received his sanc- 
tion." 

"It was seen that the old view was .untenable because 
it allowed for no prepress or development in the relig- 
ion of Israel and this was contrary to the principle of 
.evolution on which it has pleased God to order His 
dealings with man, a* He has ordered the organic and 
i norganic worlds. If the .so-called 'Elohistic' document 
was the oldest writing in the Hexateuch, then the 
religion of Israel sprang full-grown from the brain of 
Moses like Minerva from the head of Jove, and to this 
idea the data contained in the works of the earliest 
writing prophets and in the books of Judges, Samuel, 
and Kings, not to speak of the so-called 'Jehoviatic* 
document itself, were absolutely opposed. Moreover a 
closer study of the documents showed that the so-called 
< Jehovistic , dqcument was itself .composite, and that 
many of the 'Elohistic' passage* in reality belonged to 
it. It was then that Wellhaunen was led to his epoch- 
making discovery that the Prophets came before the 
Law, and with this the whole history of Israel and her 
religion was thrown into the right perspective, and the 
chosen race was brought into the proper relationship 
with the other races of mankind. It then became pos- 
- Me to place the dcNCume^its which enshrine the stjorf 



14 THE NARRATIVE O* TWK DELUCFS 

of Israel and her religion in their historical sequence* 
ajnd to bring out the progressive character of the rev* 
elation contained in Old Testament and thus a great 
step in advance was gained." 

The foregoing extract from a book called Prehistoric 
Archaeology and the Old Testament, Astley, Edinburgh 
•dated 1908, will need a little explanation in relation 
to the "documents*' mentioned. In the first place, both 
the Priestly Writer and the Elohist used the Divine 
Name "Eiohim" and while the early investigation* 
were in progress, both om that Account were mistaken 
for a single writer, which occasioned some perplexity, 
iirst apparent in Gen. xx. Finally Hupfeld (1796-1866) 
distinguished an earlier and later Elohist. The later is 
&ow called the Priestly Writer (P) and Astley has ia 
mind the Elohist in this older sense. In speaking of the 
Jehovistic document being itself composite and contain- 
ing Elohistic passages, reference is had to the document 
IE, as blended with the prior writings J and E, by an 
editor or redactor who used both documents or such 
parts of them as suited his purpose. 

M The work of the Elohist begins comparatively late 
in Genesis. Except a few important fragments we find 
no trace of him before the 20th chapter, when he begins, 
by telling how Abimelech stole Sarah. There is every 
reason to believe that his work waa originally of muck 
wider scope, the compiler of Genesis, making use of 
the Priestly Writer and the Jehovist for the earlier 
chapters, permitted that portion of the Elohist's work 
to perish, which is a great pity.* 1 — Elwood Worcester. 

"It is a fortunate circumstance that the author of the 
Pentateuch has so faithfully preserved the sepresenta- 



INTRODUCTORY 1| 



-iions and even the language of the earlier works from 
which he borrows. This renders critical analysis pos- 
sible, and enables us to recover, in part at least, the 
older histories from which oar Pentateuch was com- 
piled, These older works are primarily two, o,ne of 
which is commonly called, from its predominating 
interest in the religious and especially the sacerdotal 
institutions of Israel, the Priestly History and Law 
iBook (P); the other from its affinity with the literature 
of the flourishing period of prophecy is sometimes 
called The Prophetic History (J,E)."— Encyclopaedia 
Siblica. 

The next extract, in relation to the periods when the 
documents were written or joined together, is from a 
theological college text-book called "The World' Before 
Abraham," by H. G. Mitchell. 

"The conclusion reached in regard to the age of the 
Peota tench, then, is, that J originated about 850 and 
p about 800 B. c; that the two having been more or 
'less revised and enlarged were united into a com- 
posite document before 639 b. c; that 1>, which was 
discovered in 621 b. c, but must have been written 
sometime before and revised in the reign of Manasseh, 
was incorporated with JE early in the Captivity; and 
:that the Pentateuch was practically completed by thje 
addition of P, a product of the first half of the fifth 
century B. c, before 444, if not before 458, the date of 
Ezra's appearance in Palestine/ 1 

It now remains to state the proportions of each book 
of the Pentateuch, generally, attributed to the principal 
writers by biblical scholars. The work of the Priestly 
Writer and those of his school formed the framework 



16 THE NARRATIVE OF THE DEL0G* 

of the Pentateuch, and book of Joshua. To this wri te? 
or writer*, is attributed one fifth of Genesis, nearly half 
of Exodus, the whole of Leviticus, nearly three-fourths 
of Numbers, and part of the last chapter of Deuteron- 
omy, To the Deuteronomists is credited most of that 
work with a few verses borrowed from J and E. The 
Jehovist is credited with about one-half of Genesis, a 
sixth of Exodu9 and one fifteenth of Numbers, To the 
Elohist is atttributed one-fourth of Genesis, one-fourth. 
af Exodus, and a ninth part of Numbers. 

The redactor JE, or second Jehovfst, is not thought to* 
have added very much to his selections from the tw<* 
older works from which he compiled his document. 
Such parts of either as he may not have used, except 
at the expense of one or the other, likely perished. 

The Elohist, it is thought, had no flood story in hi* 
document, hence the same appears to have been taken 
over bodily into the document JE as it had been told by 
the Jehovist. The later Priestly Writer also included 
a story of the flood in bis dccument which became the 
framework of the narrative as it stands in Genesis. 
But the compiler had the document JE before him and 
made from it extracts from the JehovistV version, be- 
sides adding a few notes of his own. 

In reproducing the biblical account the parts printed 

in large type are those now assigned to the Priestly 

Writer; the Jehovist's are in small type* and the notes 

of the redactor, or what are thought to be such, are 

: printed in leaning letters. 



THE BIBLICAL STORY OF THE FLOOD, 

Chap. vi. 1-8. The sons of God and daughters of men., 

AND it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the 
face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, 
that the ions of Elohim* saw the daughters of men that they 
were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. 
And Jahveb said, My spirit shall not always strive with mao, 
lor that he also is flesh :f yet his days shall be an hundred and 
twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days;J 
and also after that, when the sons of Elobim came in unto the 
daughters of men, and they bare children to them: the same 
became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown,. 
Aud Jabveh saw that the wickedness of man was great in the 
earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart 
was only evil continually. And it repented Jahveh that he 
had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. f 
And Jahveh said, I will destroy man whom I have created 
from the face of the earth; both man and beast, and the 
creeping thins, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth 
me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the 
tyes of Jahveh. 

♦ The use here of the Livine Name as Elohim and again in 
a similar connection below it in a Jehoyistic section is likely to 
be attributed to a change made by the later Redactors. The lit- 
eral rendering then would be *'sons of the gods," 

+ The exact meaning of what Jahveh is represented as deter- 
mining for a future time, is considered a difficult passage to 
interpret or translate. 

% Giants or Nephilim; another mention occurs Num. xiii. 33. 

§ The attribution of human form, feelings, passions and ac- 
tions to Deity is called anthropomorphism. It is common with 
the Jebovist, but not with the later Priestly Writer. 



18 THE NARRATIVE OF TBS DELUCM 

Chap. vi. 9~19a. Noah warned of the coming Flood- 

9. These are the generations of Noah: Noah 
was a righteous man, perfect in his generations; 
Noah walked with Elohim. And Noah begat three 
sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. And the earth 
was corrupt before Elohim, and the earth was fill- 
ed with violence. And Elohim saw the earth, and, 
behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted 
his way upon the earth. And Elohim said unto 
Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for 
the earth is filled with violence through them; and 
behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make 
thee an ark of gopher wood;* rooms shalt thou 
inake in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and with- 
out with pitch. And this is how thou shalt make 
it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, the 
breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty 
cubits. A light shalt thou make to the ark, and to 
a cubit shalt thou finish it upward; and the door 
of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof, with 
lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it. 
And I, behold, I do bring a flood of waters upon^ 
the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath 
*>f life, from under heaven; every thing that is in 
the earth shall die. But I will establish my cove-, 
nant with thee; and thou shalt come into the ark* 
thou, and thy sons, and thy -wife, and thy son's 
wives with thee. And of every living thing of aU 
flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into thje 

» y. '■ ' ■ •* • ' ■ ' ' ' " - 

* Gopher wood ; supposed to jae&a pine or cy press. 



SHE BlBhlOAh STORY OF THE FLOOD If 

<Jhap. vi. 19b;-*vii. ila. Noah and his family enter the ark. 

&rk, to keep them ailive with thee; they shall be 
male and female. Of the fowl after their kind, 
and of the cattle after their kind, of every creep- 
ing: thing of the ground after his kind, two of 
; every sort shall come unto thee,, to keep them alive. 
And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, 
and gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for 
thee and for them. Thus did Noah; according to 
all that Elohim commanded him, so did he. 

VII. i. And Jahveh said unto Noah, Come thou and alii 
thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before 
me in this generation. Of every clean beast thou shalt take to 
ihee seven and seven, the male and his female: and of the 
%easts that are not clean two, the mak and his female: also of 
ithe fowl oi the heaven, seven and seven, male and female; 
to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. For yet 
seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty 
days and forty nights; and every ili-ving thing that I have made 
will I destroy from off the face of the ground. And Noah did 
according to all that Jahveh commanded him. 

6. And Noah was six hundred -years old wheti 
the flood of waters was upon the earth. 

7. And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his 
sons' wives with him into, the ark. because of the waters of 
the flood. Of clean beasts , and of beasts that are not 
clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth 
upon the ground there went in two and two , unto Noah 
into the ark, male and female as Elohim commanded 
Noah. And it came to pass after the seven days, that the 
waters of the flood were upon the earth. 

11. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in 
$he second month, on the seventeenth day of the 



20 THE NARRATIVE OF THR DELUOff 

§hap. ril. llb-21a. The Flood covers the earth* 

month, on the same day were all the fountains of 
the great deep broken up, and the windows of 
heaven were opened.* 

12. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty 
nights. 

13. In the selfsame day entered Noah, and 
Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah 
and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons 
with them, into the ark; they, and every beast 
after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, 
and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the 
earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, 
every bird of every sort. And they went in unto 
Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, where* 
in is the breath of life. And they that went in, 
went in male and female, of all flesh, as Elohim 

Commanded him: and Jahvehshut him in. 17. And the 
flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased r 
and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. 

18. And the waters prevailed and increased 
greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the 
face of the waters. And the waters prevailed ex- 
ceedingly upon the earth; fifteen cubits upward- 
$id the waters prevail; and all the high mountains, 
that were under the whole heaven were covered. 
Fifteen cubitst'uipftwatieln upward did the waters 
prevail; and the mountains were covered. And alt- 
flesh died that moved upon th e earth, both fowl, 

* "The fountains of the deep and windows of heaven" will 
fee diseuss^d in the Commentary part. t AD ° ut %? fee V 



THE BIBLICAL 8TOBY OF= THE FLOOD 23, 

£faap. Til. 21b; Till, l~8a. The waters of the Flood abate* 

and cattle, and beast, and every creeping thing 
that creepeth upon the earth, and every man. 

22. All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of 
life, of ail that was in the dry land, died. And every living 
thing was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, 
both man, and cattle, and creeping thins, and fowl of 
the heaven\ and they were destroyed from the earth: and 
Noah on If was left, and they that were with him in the ark. 

VIII 1. And Elohim remembered Noah, a&<fl 
^very living thing, and all the cattle that were 
with him in the ark; and Elohim made a wind* Jq 
pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged; the 
fountains also of the deep and the windows of heav*- 

en were Stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained; 
3. and the waters returned from off the earth continually; 

and after the end of an hundred and fifty days the 
waters decreased. And the ark rested in the 
seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the 
month, upon the mountains of Ararat. And the 
waters decreased continually until the tenth month: 
in the tenth month, on the ftrst day of the month, 
were the tops of the mountains seen. 

6. And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah. 

opened the window of the ark which he had made: and he 

sent forth the raven, zrd it vent forth to and fro, until the 

waters were dried up from the earth.-;)' And he ? sent forth the 

dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the 

* The commentators used to suggest that this wind might 
iiave been the 8amiel,or Simoon, a hot, drying blast. 

t According to the conception of the Jehovist. the raven did 
aiot return to the ark. Being regarded as an unclean bird, hi* 
idea perhaps was that it rested and fed .upon floa ting .carcasses. 



22 THE NAREATIVE OF THfi DELtf#I 



Chap. Yiii. 8b- -20a. Noah and family leave the arfc, 



face of the ground; but the dove found no rest for the sole of 
feer foot, and she returned unto him to the ark, for the waters 
were on the face of the whole earth: and he put forth his hand, 
and took her, and brought her in unto him into the ark. And 
he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the 
dove out of the ark; and the dove came to him at eventide; 
and, lo, in her mouth an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew 
t&at the waters were abated from off the earth. And he stay- 
ed vet other seven days, and sent forth the dove; and she return- 
ed not again unto him any more. 

13, And it came to pass in the six hundred and 
first year, in the first month, the first day of the 
month, the waters were dried up from off the 

£arth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, 
and, behold, the face of the ground was dried. 

14. And in the second month, on the seven and 
twentieth day of the month, was the earth dry* 
And Elohim spake unto Noah, saying, Go forth of 
the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy 
sons* wives with thee. Bring forth with thee 
every living thing that is with thee of all flesh, 
both fowl, and cattle, and every creeping thing 
that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed 
abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and mult* 
iply upon the earth. And Noah went forth, and 
his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him: 
every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, 
whatsoever moveth upon the earth, after their 
families, went forth out of the ark. 

2D. And Noah builded an altar unto Jahveh; and took of every 
clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt-offer* 



THE BIBLICAL STORY OF THE FLOOD 2$ 

Skap. TiiL 20b; ix. 1 ~&&. Noah sriyen divine instructions. 

iugsou the altar.* And jahveh smelted the sweet savor; and 
Jahveh said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground 
any more for man's sake, for that the imagination of man's 
toeart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any 
more every thing living, as 1 have done. While the earth, 
reuiaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and 
summer and winter, and day and night shalt not cease. 

IX, 1. And Elohim blessed Noah and his sons, 
and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and 
fill the earth. And the fear of you and the dread 
of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and 
upon every fowl of the heaven, even all that mov- 
eth upon the ground, and all the fishes of the sea; 
into your hand are they delivered. Every moving 
thing that liveth shall be food for you; as the green 
herb have I given you all. But flesh with the life 
thereof, the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And 
surely your blood of your lives will I require; at 
the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the 
hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother 
will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth 
man's blood by man shall his blood be shed; for in 

* This paragraph from the document of the Jehovist is strik- 
ingly anthropomorphic. Says E. WorceFter: "This is the first 
mention of an altar in the Bible. Such an aet as the erection of 
an altar and the offering of sacrifice in Armenia we may be very 
sure wonld not be tolerated by the Priestly Writer, since he held 
to the unhistorical idea that an altar might be reared only in 
Jerusalem, and that acceptable sacrifice could be ottered only by 
the sons of Aaron, This view, however, is not shared by -the 
Jehovist, and is contradicted on every page of Israel's early 
SMstory.' 1 



24 THE NARRATIVE OF THE DELETE 

£hap. ix. 6b--16a. Divine covenant with Noak* 

the image of Elohim made he man. And you, be 
ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly 
m the earth; and multiply therein. 

8, And Elohim spake unto Noah, and to his 
sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I establish 
my covenant* with you, and your seed after you; 
and with every living creature that is with you, 
the fowl, the cattle, and every beast of the earth 
with you; of all that go out of the ark, even every 
beast of the earth. And I will establish my cove- 
nant with you; neither shall all flesh he cut off any 
more by the waters of the flood; neither shall there 
any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And 
Elohim said, This is the token of the covenant 
which I make between me and you and every living 
ereature that is with you, for perpetual genera- 
tions: my bow have I set in the cloud, and it shall 
be for a token of a covenant between me and the 
earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a 
cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in 
the cloud, and I will remember my covenant, which 
is between me and you and every living creature 
of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a 
flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be iq 

* The first mention in the Bible of a covenant occurs Chap vi» 
18a t also by the Priestly Writer, and there merely promised, but 
in the present instance it is elaborated with considerable detail. 
Of the nature of a Divine Covenant (and they had an important 
bearing on the religion of the Hebrews) it means "a solemn en* 
gagement into which God deigns to enter with man, a promise 
f hat if man will do his pari God will not fail him."— E. W. 



JTHK BIBLICAL BTUKY OF THB 2LOQD 2S 

Chap. ix. 16b-l7; 28, 20. Noah's death at 950 years, 

the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may re- 
member the everlasting covenant between Elohim 
and every living creature of all flesh that is upon 
the earth. And Elohim said unto Noah, This is 
the token of the covenant, which I have established 
between me and all flesh that is upon the earth. 

[Verses 1 8 to 27 inclusive, which relate to Noah planting 
a yineyard and the curse of Cainan, etc., are attributed to the 
Jehovist.] 

28. And Noah lived after the flood three hun- 
dred and fifty years. 29. And all the days of Noah 
were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died. 



DISCUSSIONS AND CRITICAL 
COMMENTARY. 



I. 

GENERAL REMARKS. 

WE come now to the great story of the Deluge, 
which, after the narrative of the Creation and 
Fall of man, is the portion of Genesis that has had the 
greatest effect in shaping the thought of the world. 
The Flood narrative is the composite work of two writ" 
era whom we have already learned to know as the 
Priestly Writer and the Jehovfet. Only here, instead 
of allowing their narratives to follow each other, the 
editor of Genesis has broken them up and has fitted the 
fragments together so as to form one rich and varied 
picture. In this mosaic some parts overlap, i. e., repe- 
titions and discrepancies occur which could not well be 
avoided. The two documents are so dissimilar in style 
and expression that it is possible for the most part ta 
separate them, and in this way to discover the two 
original accounts, or all that is left of them. The sep- 
aration of these two documents is the result of a long 
critical process which has been going on for many 
years. As to the trustworthiness of these results I will 
only say that the most gratifying unanimity prevails 
among the great scholars. As a rule the line of cleav- 
age is clear and distinct. The work of the Jehovist 
and the work of the Priestly Writer are easily disting- 
uished* It is true* the additions made by the Redactor 



GENERAL BEMARKS ON THE NARRATIVE 2? 

i*— ■ — — ' 

in giving the work its present form are not always so 
grtaio."* 

"In the story of the Flood, both our writers have 
preserved very complete accounts of that wonderful 
event, neither of which the editor of Genesis wished to 
sacrifice. Two courses, therefore, were open to him. 
Either he could let these two accounts follow each other, 
as he did in the case of the two accounts of Creation, 
which would be rather mechanical; or else he could 
work both narratives together into one continuous 
story by breaking up each account and fitting the 
various fragments together as best he could. It is a 
proof of the care with which the Redactor did his work, 
that when these two dislocated documents are detached 
from each other and are put together again in their 
original order, we have two independent and nearly 
complete stories of the Flood — one from the Priestly 
Writer and the other from the Jehovist. 

'•There is one thing, however, which no editor, how- 
ever conscientious, could avoid in piecing together two 
narratives in this way — that is, repeating himself. 
This accounts satisfactorily and perfectly for those 
strange repetitions and discrepancies which run all 
through the Flood story, and which so many persona 
have criticised or ridiculed."! 

In regard to repetions the following may be mention- 
ed: 1. There are two introductions in chapter six 
that assign a cause for the bringing of a flood upon the 
earth. 2. There is mention twice of Noah and his 

* Elwood Worcester, Genesis in the Light of Modern Know* 
l*4ge t; pp.. 823, 324. f IMd. PP- 317, 31$, 



2£ THE NAREATIVE OF THE DEMTO* 



family and the animals entering the ark. 3. Twice 
the ark is stated to be borne upward upon the waters of 
the Flood, 4* Twice all living things left upon the 
land are said to hare died. 5. Twice the subsidence 
of the waters is described. 6. The promise that a 
flood shall not again desolate the earth is twice given. 
Moreover, the Priestly Writer often repeats himself by 
reiterating certain sentences and clauses. Here follow 
two characteristic repetitions: 

"Thus did Noah according to all that Elohim com- 
manded him, so did he." vi. 22. (P.) 

"And Noah did according to all that Jahveh com- 
manded him." vii. 5. (J.) 

Any two documents by different authors which relate 
the same events are .quite apt to agree as to the main 
particulars, but to present discrepancies in regard (a 
subordinate passages and minor details. Such, it i» 
evident, occur in the narrative of the Deluge. Th# 
Priestly Writer most likely was acquainted with sev- 
eral versions of the flood story, among others that of 
the Jehovist as contained in the document JE. Writ- 
ing some three centuries later than the Jehovist, he 
had vjews of hi? own in regard to the variable flood 
legend. He assigns as a cause of the deluge the break- 
ing up of the fountains of the deep and the opening of 
the windows of heaven, which accords with his ideas of 
cosmogony, Gen. i 2, 7, On the other hand, the Jeho- 
vist mentions no other cause for the deluge than a 
heavy downpour of rain lasting forty days and forty 
nights. 

"The composite character of the narrative is teen 
from repetitions: as to entering into the ark, the raising 
of the flood, the perishing of all living creatures, and 



GENERAL REMARKS ON THE NARRATIVE 29 

the drying of the earth; and from contradictions: in P 
we hare periods of 150 days, in J of 40 aud 7; in P 
there are pairs of all the kinds of animals; in J sevens 
of the clean, pairs of the unclean."* 

"I pass over other repetitions and contradictions, 
but I think those mentioned are sufficient to prove that 
two separate accounts are closely interwoven in these 
chapters. No sane writer repeats and contradicts him- 
self in this manner. In our study of the Flood I think 
it will he best to treat each account separately. 
There are, of course, differences of opinion as to the 
authorship of some verses, but on the whole the line 
of cleavage is wonderfully distinct"! 

In the light of modern knowledge, and in the light of 
even the science commonly taught in present day school 
books, the flood story is not lacking in crude statements, 
but so impressive is the narrative, and so wide has been 
its acceptance as literal history, that these points have 
been rather obscured; nevertheless, in times past, they 
have often been made the subject of criticism and even 
ridicule at the hands of persons intelligent enough to 
notice them. These points will be discussed later, par- 
ticularly when we come to treat of the difficulties that 
began to accumulate in relation to the narrative 
resulting from the increase of knowledge after the year 
1830, in consequence of which commentators and other 
theological writers began to encounter embarrassments 
from which their predecessors had been singularly free. 
It will next be in order to give some' attention to the 
style and characteristics of both of the writers of the 

* Bennett and Adeney, Biblical Introduction, p. 80. 
t E. Worcester, Genesis, in the Light of Modern Knowledge, 
pp. 321, 322. 



SO THE NARRATIVE OF THE DELUGE 

" — ■ ' . « g 

flood narrative as these have been inferred or deduced 
from certain remains of their writings scattered through 
the Pentateuch. 

"Although this Priestly Writer sometimes deals with 
history, it is chiefly for the sake of accounting for cer- 
tain laws and customs. Even in his inimitable first 
chapter of Genesis he does not tell the story of creation 
out of love for natural science, but in order to show 
what arrangements were made for man, and by what. 
means the chosen people were gradually formed, and 
from what noble, God-fearing men they were descended. 
Accordingly he is much interested in family history, 
which sometimes contracts to a mere thread. We see in 
his writings none of the warmth of feeling of the Jeho- 
vist. He presents few interesting anecdotes; he paints. 
few great characters. One feels that he is always in a 
hurry to get through, but is prevented by his innumer* 
able repetitions. His language is dry, stiff and legal, 
with the reiteration of certain favorite forms of ex- 
pression. 

"On the other hand, his views of Deity are very 
elevated, if somewhat cold. He is an absolute mono- 
theist. Elohim is the unique cause of all that exists. 

"For the rest, the Priestly Writer holds austere ancfc 
sjmple views of God. The God who makes coats for 
men, comes down and converses with them familiarly, 
sups with Abraham and makes Sarah laugh, is not his. 
Creator, whom he carefully shields from every suspicion 
of familiarity. He even goes so far as to avoid all 
mention of angels, and, true to the principle laid down 
in Leviticus, of one supreme shrine and one altar, he 
avoids all mention of the old shrines and sacred 



GENERAL REMARK8 ON THE NARRATIVE %\ 

v- J ' " ■ ■ J 

places of Canaan which the other two writers love to 
associate with the lives of the patriarchs."* 

"His style* says another writer, "is unmistakable, 
It is logical and orderly beyond that of either of the 
other documents. The contents of the document were 
largely legal, chronological aud genelogical; at any 
rate that is the character of most of the portions of it 
that have been preserved,"! 

"The Jehovist, of whom I now wish to speak, is in 
some respects quite the equal of either [the Priestly 
Writer or the Elohist] and in one respect he is superior 
to both. He is more original. While using the old 
narratives freely like the Elohist, he knows how to 
extract more spiritual truth from them. He scarcely 
ever tell* a story for the love of the story itself. In 
telling it he makes it throw some light on the moral 
life of man. We have seen how little it was possible 
to gather from the writings of our other two authors in 
regard to the men themselves. They are too objective. 
The Jehovist, on the contrary, is intensely subjective. 
He is, I may say, a passionate writer, haunted by ideals, 
It is therefore very probable that in relating the old 
stock of traditions he modified them far more than did 
either the Elohist or the Priestly Writer, but, on the 
other hand, he has stamped them with the sign manual 
of a great genius. Passing through the conscience of 
the Jehovist, these old stories are freed from their 
earthly dross and become forever living symbols of the 
spiritual life. Who knows how much virtue this man 

* E. Worcester, Genesis in the Light of Modern Knowledge, 
New York, 1901. pp. 43, 44, 45. 

* H. G. Mitchell, The World Before Abraham. N. Y M 1901. 



8$^ THE NARKATIVE OF THE DELVQM 



has created, or how much of our moral life we owe to 
the religious genius of him who for want of a better 
name we call the Jehovist ? 

"lathe Jehovist we meet for the first time with a pro- 
fou.nct philosophy of life. He is penetrated with a sense 
of man's sin, and he sets himself to discover its causes. 
In attempting to solve the problem of the origin of 
man's iniquity, he wrote those chapters of Genesis 
which have borne the greatest fruits. 

"In spite of the painful melancholy of these narrations, 
they possess a charm and teach a lesson that will never 
die. Such narratives as the Fall, the fratricide of Cain, 
and the Flood, under the simplest garb contain truths of 
such depth that we may explain away the myth as much 
as we please without affecting them in the least. Light 
shines on the face of the abyss, and yet the deep re- 
mains deep."* 

"The remains of the Yahwisticf work show that the 
interests of its author (or authors) were predominantly 
religious, and that he wrote the history of his people for 
the purpose of imparting instruction in the truths that 
bear upon national and individual life and character. 

"The style is free and flowing, picturesque and poet* 
icai; therefore always interesting-, and sometimes high- 
ly dramatic. The theology is naive and primitive, 
God, e. g. being sometimes represented, not only as 
possessing tangible parts and displaying human pas- 
sions, but as associating familiarly with men."j 

* E. Worcester, Genesis in the Light of Modern Knowledge, 
extracts from pages 49. 50, 51, 52. 

f Yahwistic (Jehovistic) authors; i. e. J and JE. 

% H. Q. Mitchell , The World Before Abraham. N. Y„ .1901. 



GENERAL REMARKS ON THE NARRATIVE 33 

Next will be given a couple of extracts in regard to 
$he style of the Priestly Writer and the Jehovist which 
mte more directly connected with the flood narrative. 

"The Priestly Writer's account lacks scarcely any- 
thing. It is probably almost in the form in which it 
left its author's hand. When we compare the Priestly 
Writer's document with the Jehovist's, we see that in 
spirit and conception, as well as in execution, they are 
very different. Notwithstanding the Priestly Writer's 
peculiar dry style and his wearisome repetition of cer- 
tain choice expressions, his ideas are lofty, though they 
are very cold. He tell* us that Noah was a righteous 
man: further than that Noah remains a perfectly color- 
leas character. God also is conceived in much the same 
manner. The Priestly Writer carefully avoids all such 
anthropomorphical expressions as that God 'repented/ 
<was grieved at His heart,' that He 'shut the door after 
Noah/ or was pleased with the smell of the burning 
sacrifice. His Elohim is far removed from such human 
conduct and feeling. He is above the world and acta 
more from an abstract sense of justice than from passion 
or emotion of any sort. 

"On the other hand, the Priestly Writer's style is 
very workmanlike. He makes a telling use of mathe- 
matics * which gives quite a substantial air to his 
story."f 

"The P passages present the characteristics of P and 
thus connect with the rest of that document. They fit 

• The dimensions of the ark; the height of the flood; and its 
reckoning by months and by days of months. 

t £. Worcester, Genesis in the Light of Modern Knowledge, 
pp. 357, 368. 



&£ THE NARRATIVE OF THE &%L®Q1& 



into iu scheme of exact chronology; they give a quasi- 
scientific account oh a cosmic scale; the great deep is 
broken up below, and heaven opened above; there is no 
anthropomorphism; we have the diviue name Elohim, 
and P's favorite formula, 'after his kind/ 'beast, cattle, 
creeping thing, fowl, bird/ etc. 

"On the other hand, in J we have graphic popular 
narrative, e. g. the picturesque episode of the dove, 
anthropomorphism, the Lord, i. e. Jehovah, shuts up 
the ark; the divine name Jehovah, etc. In several 
instances the P paragraphs interrupt the connection 
between the J paragraphs, and visa versa. The phrases 
in small capitals* are assigned to the editor, because 
they do not seem to belong to their immediate context, 
and yet find no place iu the other document."! 

Haid Ernest Kenan in speaking of the Jehovist: 
"How is it possible that the author of such masterpieces 
should be unknown ? The same question is now asked 
of the Homeric poems, of nearly all the grand epics, 
and in short of all the books produced from popular 
traditions. Books of this kind are of no special value 
to the first generations, well acquainted with the tradi- 
tions they embody, and by the time the priceless 
character of the work is discovered the name of the 
author has disappeared," 

* In this work leaning letters have been used. 

t Bennett and Adeney, Biblical Introduction, N. Y., 190& 
p t 30. (This text- book is used in some theological colleges.) 



THE TRADITIONAL VIEW 35 



II. 

THE TRADITIONAL VIEW. 

Traditional views of the narratives in Genesis are 
those that have been commonly held all along by church 
people generally and taught from the pulpit, and used 
in religious literature and the Sunday school. Any 
view or belief concerning any particular narrative may 
remain traditional until disturbed by the advancement 
of knowledge, in which case some modification of belief 
may finally ensue as the outcome of discussion and 
controversy. This occurred repeatedly during the nine- 
teenth century. In the early part of the century the 
belief was almost universally held that the earth is only 
about six thousand years old and had been created out 
of nothing in six literal days. No intelligent person 
now holds to that belief. Again* it was commonly held 
that the Deluge had been universal as to the surface of 
the earth and had covered the highest mountains every- 
where on the globe; and that fossil shells and bones of 
extinct species of animals were an indisputable sort of 
evidence of its universality. The advancement made 
in physical knowledge caused a modification of the first 
view and an abandonment of the latter. And so with 
some other q uestions. 

The following brief paragraphs from the little book, 
"The Bible and Criticism, " before quoted, defines what 
are commonly called traditional views, but in relation 
to other points than those just cited: — "First as to the 
nature and history of the traditional views. They are 
Views which, until the last quarter of the nineteenth 
jcentury, were usually taken for granted in popular 



36 THE NAREATIVE OF THE DBLTO* 

— — — _^ 

preaching, teaching, and text-books. In very wide 
circles they are still taken for granted; the presnpposi* 
tfons of popular religion can only be changed very 
riowly. These views generally assume that if a per* 
sonal name of a man is connected with a book the whole 
of that hook in the form in which we now have it was 
written by that man. To take the controversies which 
have attracted most attention: it was supposed thai 
Moses wrote the Pentateuch; David the Psalms; Solomon 
the whole of Proverbs, Ecclesiastcs, and Canticles; Isaiah 
the whole of Isaiah, and Daniel [the book of] Daniel. 
As a rule those who were in any degree thoughtful and 
well-informed admitted that Moses did not write Deut* 
xxxiv. 5-12, and that the very principle they were ap- 
plying prevented their ascribing to David the psalms 
which were not connected with his name. They also 
saw that the principle could not be applied to the books 
of Samite). 

"Moreover, the traditional views in some form or 
another were supposed to rest upon an authority which 
could not be called in question. All criticism was re- 
garded as superfluous and impertinent. There seems 
jto have been an impression that these views had been 
communicated by a definite and explicit revelation, or 
that they had been established beyond all doubt after a 
careful examination of full, express, and convincing 
evidence by Jewish and Christian scholars in the cen- 
turies before and after the beginning of the Christian 
Era. There is no foundation for either opinion." 

It might be difficult to attempt to define any present 
day view of the account of the Deluge that could be 
palled traditional, since on that subject a variety of 



THE TRADITIONAL VIEW 37 

opinion is prevalent among the denominations and even 
with persons of the same'denomination. Beinc consider- 
ed as belonging to non-essential topics, church people 
appear to he left at liberty to form any opinions they 
chose on the subject. If we take the common religious 
literature of the day we find that it generally assumes 
that the flood story is historical, that it was an impor- 
tant event in the history of the human race which had an 
actual occurrence, that Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth 
were real persons, and that Shem was the ancestor of 
the Hebrews. At the same time no attempt is made to 
give any date to the Deluge as was formerly done under 
the influence of Ussher's Biblical chronology. Perhaps 
the following statements may be put forward as being 
broadly maintained, if not defended, by the average 
sort of religious and Sunday school literature: 

1. That the Biblical record of the Flood is an his- 
torical circumstance. 

2. That the Flood covered such part of the earth only 
as suited God's purpose. 

3. That it was caused by rain and the rising of the 
ocean over the land. 

4. That Noah and his sons were real persons. 

5. That Noah actually built an ark in which himself 
and family and some animals were saved. 

6. That at least the white race are descended from 
Noah, if not all races. 

7. That Moses wrote the narrative of the Flood. 

8. That his account is confirmed by many different 
traditions. 

There are some who are unwilling to give up the 
Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, but who, never- 
theless, recognize the differences in style in different 



THE !*AR*ATIVE OF THE BKLVQ& 



parts of the story of the flood, and try to account for it 
by saying that Moses used different manuscripts., iThia 
presupposes that hefere tha Israelites left Egypt some 
men among them were in the habit of writing annals of 
patriafchiai times for family instruction. As has al- 
ready been shown, the critical schools are satisfied that 
she remains of the manuscripts used in the compilation, 
of the Pentateuch do not bear the marks of that age. 

Although the old-time date of the Deluge, 2348 B. c, 
has been abandoned mainly on account of being so pal- 
pably at variance with archaeological discovery, we fail 
to meet now with any attempts on the part of those 
who maintain the historicity of the flood narrative, to 
anticipate and try to meet critical questions and difficul- 
ties, such as are apt to arise in the minds of all well- 
read persons. Instead of meeting difficulties, the pro- 
cedure seems to be to ignore and thus deliberately evade 
them. There seems to be a lack of candor, in this 
respect, such as characterized those who wrote before 
the middle of the last century on the subject of the 
Deluge and at a time when the progress of science was 
creating embarrassments in that connection. It is, we 
presume, a literary axiom that it is the duty of those 
who maintain any disputable view to produce data in 
support of their position; if they will not do this, their 
course only amounts to mere assertion for which no 
proof is advanced. Perhaps it should be said that the 
traditionalists assume the narrative is true because they 
find it in the Bible, and that this, according to their 
belief "contains no admixture of error," and so the,y 
comment from that standpoint. Still, they cannot but 
be well aware that other views are widely prevalent, 
ajnd widespread contrary opinions invite notice. 



THE TR1DITIOH4L VIEW 3& 

■» - ■ .1 . . - . 

Once every six yearn the International Sunday School 
Lessons begin over again at the first chapter of Genesis, 
the story of the Flood forming the fifth lesson. A recom- 
mencement was thus made in 1901, 1907 and 1913. It 
is customary to present the lesson for each week, as 
reached, with a commentary, in religious publications 
and in some newspapers, but they are more largely dealt 
with and in advance in monthly puplicatious and in 
quarterlies. The comments vary with the publications. 
The following is an extract from one of these comment- 
aries and on the lesson concerning the Deluge, taken 
from a small relgious paper: 

"Presumably the story os the flood was told by Noah and his 
sons to their descendants and written out from their account 
of it, and that it certainly appeared to them that the whole 
world was covered. That is all that we need to believe about 
1 t. Of course there cannot be any fault found with those who 
prefer to take the story as they find it, but these should not 
find fault with others who assume that the flood covered so 
much of the world as was necessary to accom pilch God's pur- 
pose. The essential thing to be kept in mind in the study of 
the Bible is that its purpose is to reveal the character and ways 
and purposes of God. 

''Apparantly there have been a number of great floods)in the 
past history of the world. The British Isle? were once part of 
the continent of Europe, but there came a time when the 
whole of that part of the globe sunk down into the sea and 
was completely submerged; and when it came up again there 
was a channel between Britain and the mainland. Caves 
have been found high up in the hills floored with sea gravel 
and under the gravel the remains of men and animals that 
lived before the land became the bottom of the sea and the 
gravel was deposited on it. Whethet this or others similar bea* 



40 THE NARRATIVE OF THE DELUGE 

any relation to Noah's flood or not, is a matter of no conse- 
quence to us. Our business is to learn the lesson which Noah's 
flood was designed to teach." 

We shall comment a little on what is here part of a 
Sunday Hehool commentary. Of all the sentences in the 
foregoing extract that terminate with periods, only 
two commend themselves to our judgement and those 
are the ones at the elose of eaeh paragraph. The at- 
tempt apparantly made in two oilier sentences to dis- 
courage investigation and inquiry, is a more or less 
common pro penalty on the part of a certain class of 
theological writers. "It is easy to satisfy those who do 
not inquire/' said a eertain English canon of the last 
century. It is not so easy to satisfy those who do in- 
quire, who raise critical questions, and make some use 
of their God-given reason. As for the rest, it is merely 
a tissue of presumptions, assertions and inaccurate 
statements, especially where the article tries to drag in 
matters that pertain to geology and prehistoric archsei- 
ology. 

The last are evidently derived from Sir J. W. Daw- 
son's "Story of the Earth and Man," edition of 1887. 
Now Principal Dawson in matters pertaining to the 
Pleistocene Age (Glacial Pariod) and Prehistoric Man, 
lagged back behind contemporary geologists and in 
regard to the latter subject, like Hugh Miller before 
hjm, allowed his judgment to be biased by theological 
considerations. Dawson died November 19, 1899, but 
we cannot say to what extent he may have modified 
some of his views during the preceding twelve years. 
There are many theological writers, but of no particular 
eminence, who, in articles, pamphlets, etc , quote pas- 



THE TRADITIONAL VIEW 41 

sages from books of "Bible geologists" who wrote at a 
time when certain subjects were still under investiga- 
tion and unsettled, and when various conflicting theories 
were prevalent, and hold these up to their readers as 
"recent science." Anything written about the Glacial 
Period or concerning Prehistoric Man which antedates 
the year 1890, and by the kind of writers mentioned, 
would now be generally worthless. To show this w« 
need only refer to two points in what has been quoted. 
Lyell, Hugh Miller and other British geologists held 
the view that north of the Thames at least, the British 
Isles were deeply submerged by the sea during the 
Pleistocene or Quaternary Age. These submergence 
views have been abandoned by the later school of geol- 
ogists because the marks and data once thought to in- 
dicate submergence can now be more naturally explain- 
ed on other considerations. Limited submergences of 
coast lines are admitted so high only as old beaches and 
other marks prove the same. No geologist would en- 
dorse the view of the formation of the English Channel 
given in the extract. At a time when that part of 
Europe was more elevated than now, the Channel was 
excavated by river erosion and was likely the lower 
part of the basin of the Seine. It is what the school 
books speak of as an example of a "drowned valley/' 
At least twice since its formation Pleistocene elevations 
united Britain with the continent. 

Nor does the commentator do any better in citing 
things that belong to the province of prehistoric archae- 
ology. When the average theological writer does that 
he is almost sure to stumble. To say in this age of 
knowledge when the truth can be scientifically stated, 
that it is of no consequence whether prehistoric remains 



40 THE NABKATIVE OF THE DELUGE 

■ ' ' ' ' * ■ ■ i i. i . Pii . J J i i .1 i , . L » l 

Stave any relation to the Noachian deluge or not, is not 
a commendable statement to make. It looks much like 
Irying to discourage the reading of works on Prehistoric 
Man. The caves referred to are Kenvs and Brixham 
caverns. The first has always been open during his- 
toric times, but the existence of the other was only 
revealed in 1858 by the caving in of the roof of one of 
its galleries, the openings having been sealed up by 
the sliding down of loose materials. The contents of 
ICents Cave were found to be breccia, stalagmite, cave 
earth, cinder band, another floor of stalagmite, and 
modern accumulations. In the Brixham cavern there 
was found many feet of fluvatile gravel at the bottom v 
with cave earth and stalagmite above that. No fossil 
remains were found in the gravel except at the top of 
f&e deposit. Ages ago the cave was part of an under- 
ground channel when the configuration of the surround- 
ing country was different from what it is now, and the 
gravel was a deposit of a subterranean stream. When, 
owing to surface changes, the stream abandoned its 
channel, either cave earth or limey stalagmite could 
begin forming and mau could occupy the cave. 

Prehistoric archaeology has made such advancement 
in the last twenty-five years that, in the case of new 
discoveries of implements and rtrnaia* of ancient man 
in Europe, it is now possible, by the aid of various 
criteria, and with a tolerable degree of certainty, to 
assign to such remains both their chronological sequence 
and race type. In Lyelfs time this was impossible 
because the succession of glacial and interglacial 
epochs had not been worked out, and there was preva- 
lent much diversity of opinion among geologists as t© 
the interpretetion to be placed upon the data in hand. 



THE TRADITIONAL VTEW 4$ 

It is even possible to make the science retrospective so 
4» to include most of the earlier discoveries* There is no 
evidence of any Pleistocene dipping of the land along 
the south coast of England exceeding sixty feet below 
present levels, and as the caverns mentioned are about 
one hundred feet above the Channel, it is doubtful 
whether the sea ever reached them in that age or since. 
The ancient relics of man found in these caves are 
classed as Chellean, Mousterian and Magdalenian, that 
is, they belong to the second iuterglacial epoch, Third 
(jHacial stage and early part of the third interglacial 
epoch, all palaeolithic in age and of a time long before 
man had attained to the use of metals. 

In 1895 Dr. W. H. Green, who for fifty years was a 
professor at Princeton, published a book called "The 
Unity of Genesis," in opposition to what he calls tha 
"divisive hypothesis" of the higher critics in regard to 
Genesis. Of similar tenor is Prof. Orr's book called 
*The Problem of the Old Testament." There have 
been many such works published in the last thirty 
years, all aiming to defend the traditional view against 
what such writers are apt to term the "assaults of the 
Higher Criticism." but the two works mentioned, which 
belong to Scribner's Popular Religious Series, appear 
to be as painstaking as any. 

Dr. Green divide* his book of 583 pages (a reprint 
dated 1910) into ten chapters, long or short, correspond- 
ing with the sections of Genesis beginning "These are 
the generations," etc. His book seems to be filled with 
as many arbitrary assumptions as he accuses the higher 
critics of. His "Generations of Noah" covers pages 
65-130, but there is not a sentence in all this that at- 



4£ THE SAftBATIV* OF THE DELUGE 



Camps to meet and explain away anything arising from 
science or historical criticism; ou the contrary in books 
of this kind such topics seem to be deliberately evaded, 
and the ground assumed that the narratives are histor- 
ical. We presume, however, that both of these authors 
would have said that matters pertaining to science and 
historical criticism did not come within the scope of 
their works; yet while they broadly assert that the 
higher critics reject the early chapters of Genesis as 
unhistorical, they nevertheless make no effort to defend 
those chapters as in reality historical. The main effort 
of such writers is to prove, to their own satisfaction at 
least, that the critical school is wrong in assigning the 
Pentateuch in general to more than one writer. 

Dr. Green's long chapter on Noah and the Flood is 
subdivided into a number of minor divisions bearing such 
heads as these: J Not Continuous — P Not Continuous 
—-No Superfluous Repetitions — The Divine Names — 
No Discrepancies — Difference of Diction — Marks of P 
— Marks of J. The following is an example of his ex- 
egesis taken from the division on difference of diction 
or style observable between P and J. 

"More especially is this the case when the partition is made 
on the basis of certain assumed characteristic differences. It 
is assumed at the start, we may suppose, that a given produc- 
tion is a composite one, formed by the combination of two 
pre-existing documents. Two sections respectively assigned to. 
these documents are then compared, and the resulting differ- 
ences noted as severally characteristic of one or the other. The 
documents are then made out in detail by the persistent ap- 
plication of the criteria thus furnished. Every paragraph, 
sentence, or clause, in whioh any of the one class or character- 
istics is found, is regularly and consistently assigned to the 



THE TRADITIONAL VIKW 45 

document, and with like regularity and consistency all, in 
which any of the other class of characteristics appear, is re* 
ferred to the other document, the number of criteria growing 
a* the work proceeds. When now the process is completed, 
each document will be found to have the assumed series of 
characteristics for the simple reason that it was throughout 
constructed by the critic himself upon that pattern. He it 
arguing in a circle, which of course returns upon itself. Ht 
proves the documents by the criteria, and the criteria by the 
documents; and these match as far as they do because they 
have been adjusted to one another with the utmost care. But 
the correspondence may be faetitious after all. It may show 
the ingenuity of the operator, without establishing the objec- 
tive reality of his conclusions. The documents which ht 
fancies he has discovered may be purely a creation of his own, 
and never have had en independent existence. "* 

Prof. Orr't book is primarily a British publication 
first printed in London in 1906. His works seem to be 
fairly well known in this country, and in general, may 
be quoted as being opposed to the portions taken by 
the higher critics. But be says in his preface: 

"Those who expect to find in [this work] a wholesale 
denunciation of critics and of everything that sa yours of 
criticism will be disappointed. The author is not of 
the opinion that much good is accomplished bj the 
violent and indiscriminating assault* on the critics 
sometimes indulged in by very excellent men. The case 
which the critics present must be met in a calm, tern* 
perate, and scholarly way, if it is to be dealt with to 
the satisfaction of thoughtful Christian people. On the 
other hand, those who come to the book expecting to 
find in it agreement with the methods and results of the 

# W. H. Green. The Unity of Genesis, pp t 95, 96. 



THE NARRATIVE OF THE DELUQl 

— , ■ . ■ - ■ , I , ■ ■ i , • i . ■> . 

signing critical Bchools will probably be not left 
disappointed. The author h an here no option." 

We find little in Prof. Orr's book in relation to the 
flood chapters of Genesis, and as is usual with suck 
writers, attention is fixed on the partition hypothesis of 
the critics and not m\ any of the numerous difficulties 
that the narrative furnishes, as it stands. The follow- 
ing extract may he given: 

"The story of the flood, (Gen. vi.-4x.), which comes next, 
is the classical proof of the distinction of the two sources P 
and J; but we must claim it also as an illustration of the im- 
possibility of separating the narrative into two independent 
histories. The substance of the story is allowed to be the 
same in both. 'In chaps, vii., viii.,' Kuenensays, 'two almost 
parallel narratives are combined into a single whole.' Since 
the discovery of the Babylonian account of the deluge, it if 
recognized that both writers drew trom very old sources, and, 
moreover, that it needs both J and P to yield the complete 
parallel to the old Chaldean version. P, e. g. in Genesis, 
gives the measurements of the ark, but lacks the sending out 
of the birds — an essential feature in the Babylonian story. J, 
has the birds, and also the sacrifice of Noah, which P, again* 
wants. In not a few passages the criteria curiously inter- 
mingle, and the services of the redactor have to be called, 
freely into requisition to disintangle them. E. g., in chaps, 
vii. 7*IQ, 23, viii. I, 2. where there is literary fusion of some 
kind. Above all, the parts of tbe narrative fit into each other 
in a way that makes it impossible to separate them."* 

Footnote to above: " 'Noah offers no sacrifice,' says Car* 
penter. But this is really a proof of the unity of the history* 
for the sacrifice — an essential part of the Babylonian story, 
which P must have known — is found in J." 

* James Or?, The problem of the Old Testament, pp. 847, 34$ 



■ THE TRADITIONAL VIEW 4I S 



Both Professors Green and Orr and similar authors 
seem constantly to shake before the eyes of their read- 
ers the fact that on the .critic'* own showing, according 
to the partition hypothesis, neither P nor J are contin- 
uous, therefore the theory of several documents must be 
fallacious, or that they desired to create that impres- 
sion, What critics really maintain that we have in 
the flood narrative all that P or J ever wrote on the 
subject? None that we know of. Doubtless the epi- 
sodes of the sending out of the birds and the sacrifice 
made by Noah were in both documents but those given 
by J were preferred by the compiler as being the best 
versions. On the whole, more seems to have been sacrific- 
ed that belonged to J's version than the other. As if not 
to be unfair, these writers occasionally admit in the text 
or in footnotes that the critics cet over the "difficulties" 
(as if they really were difficulties) of omissions of the 
kind mentioned, by claiming that there was sacrifice of 
one version in favor of another. — Haid The Outlook in 
a notice of Dr. Green's book: 

" Professor Green's analysis has failed to shake our 
conviction that the book of Genesis was composed, like 
the Diatessaron of Tatian, of preexisting accounts, which 
have been skilfully woven together, not without leaving 
marks of the joiner's art. But he who desires to know 
what the ablest and most thorough scholarship in either 
England or America can say in opposition to this 
opinion will find it in Dr. Green's volume." 



48 THE NARRATIVE OF THE DELUQ* 



YTT * * T-. p^ 

THE SONS OP GOD AND DAUGHTERS OP MEN, &m 

If we were to look into any of the old commentaries, 
and in relation to the sixth chapter of Genesis, it would 
probably be found that verses 1-8 formed a difficult 
passage to try to explain satisfactorily. This is on 
account of the incongruous nature of the passage, so dif- 
ferent from anything elsewhere met with in the Old 
Testament. The commentators hardly doubted that 
the writers of Jude (verse 6) and II Peter (ii. 4) had 
this passage in mind when they wrote those epistles. 
Aside from this it was found written in Matt. xxii. 30 
that angels "neither marry nor are given in marriage, 
but are as the angels of God in heaven," which added 
to the complexity of the matter. Angels being regard- 
ed as ethereal beings who were capable of making 
themselves visible or invisible at will, their assumption 
of human form, seizing upon the daughters of men for 
wives and begetting children, seemed to the commenta- 
tors very improbable; they were therefore disposed t«* 
interpret the passage as meaning that certain pious 
descendants of Seth had fallen away and took wives 
from among the ungodly posterity of Cain. Some even 
suggested that the giants of the narrative were not so 
much men of large stature as chieftains who were mon- 
sters in wickedness. 

The Jehovist appears to have introduced this tale into 
his document to account for the supposed wickedness 
of men and as introductory to the story of the Flood. 
He probably meant some order of angels and nothing 
$lse. We may be sure that the Priestly Writer would 



Ttt* 80N8-O* GOT), KTC— FLOOD CHRONOLOGY 49 

oot have tolerated such an episode in his document,, 
We shall next introduce here some extracts that present 
qppoftite views of the pasxasre in question. 

"The first definite attempt to interpret our narrative, so far 
as I am aware, is in the apocraphel book of Enoch, [written, 
about 125 B. c] The passage begins, like our chapter, with 
the discovery on the part of the angels of the beauty of the 
daughters of men. The angels, filled with admiration for 
mortal maidens, resolve to marry them. Sernjuza, their chief, ? 
hesitates. He says: 'I am afraid that you do not intend to 
carry out this act, and that I alone will have to pay the penalty 
of this great sin.' Two hundred others, however, bind them- 
selves with an oath to do it. Accordingly, the whole brood 
sweeps down on Mount Hermon. They go up and down on 
the earth and make choice of those young women who please 
them best. The angels teach them all kinds ot magic arts and 
incantations." 

"It is very plain that St. Jude had this story before him 
and followed it almost word for word when he wrote, 'And the 
angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own 
habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under dark- 
ness, until the judgment of the last day.'" 

•'In the second epistle ascribed to St. Peter, it is evident 
that the author had the same event in mind when he says: 
'If God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down 
to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be re- 
served unto judgment.' The doctrine of the Fall of the An- 
gels, therefore, appears to rest on the strange story of Genesis. 

"Without going any further we can see that the story of 
the 'sons of God' and the 'daughters of men' was a popular 
tale in the century before Christ and in the century after Christ. 
It is found in the book of Jubilees, in Philo Judseus, and in 
Josephus. All these authors, . as well as many of the church 
Fathers of the first three centuries, understood by the 4 sous 



5(X -THE NARRATIVE OF THE DELOQK 

of God' angels, and nothing else. It is even possible that the 
Book of Enoch may contain some old Hebrew traditions which 
Were allowed to fall from Genesis 'Sons of God' is a name 
often appled to angels in the Old Testament, especially in Job 
and the Psalms/' 

"Granting that the sons of God are angelic beings, or still 
better, spiritual beings, superior to man, we see at once that 
we are dealing with a very peculiar story, which resembles the 
myths of the Gentiles much more than the religion of the Old 
Testament, with its clean-cut distinction between God and 
man. In short, the giants are conceived as a sort of interme- 
diate race between gods and men, and it was tor the sake of 
destroying this proud and unnatural brood that the Flood was 
sent. Among the Greeks and Romans the habit of tracing the 
descent of noble families from gods and goddesses was very 
common. Plato goes so far as to say that all heroes are demi- 
gods, born of the love of a god for a mortal woman or of a 
goddess for a mortal man. Such an idea could have arisen 
among the Hebrews only at an early age, and we may be sure 
that this story is very old. It appears in the document of the 
Jehovlst, but he certainly did not originate it. On the con- 
trary, it is a tale opposed to his whole mode of thought, as we 
can infer from the way he hurries over it, stripping it doubtless 
of many of its mythological features. From the description 
of the giants and heroes of old as celebrated men — men e£ 
renown — it is plain that they were popular characters of whom 
the people had many stories to tell."* 

Dr. Green devotes all between pages 51 and 61 and. 
more of his book to a discussion of this subject. In his 
dogmatic, arbitrary way, as will be seen from the ex- 
tract that follows, he denies or tries to expain away; 

- * E. Worcester, Genesis in the Light of Modern Knowledge; 
Extracts, pp. 805, 306, 807. 308, 809. 



THE 8OV8 OF GOD, BTC— FLOOD CHRONOLOGY VI 

Ihe view of thi» pappape taken by writer* like the one 
last quoted. When two professedly Christian authors 
ho radically disagree, who is to decide? In theology 
and Biblical interpretation divergence of views have 
always been common; but in this case we see no points 
.of contact. 

"The sons of God are not angels nor demigods, whose 
intermarriage with the daughters of men brought forth a race 
of monsters or superhuman beings. This purely mythological 
conceit was foisted upon the passage in certain apocryphal 
books like the book of Enoch; also by Philo and Josephus, 
who were misled by the analogy of ancient heathen fables. 
But it was repelled by the great body of Jewish and Christian 
interpreters from the earliest periods, though it has been taken 
up again by a number of modern scholars. It is assumed by 
them that a transgression of angels is here spoken of, though 
the existence of angels has not been before mentioned nor in 
any way referred to in the previous part of the book of Genesis. 
This view has no sanction whatever in Scripture. Jude, vs. 
6, 7, and 2 Pet. ii 4 have been tortured into sustaining it; but 
they contain no reference to this passage whatever. And there 
is no analogy anywhere in the Bible for the adoption by the 
sacred writers of mythological notions in general, or for the 
idea in particular ot the intermarriage of angels and women. 
Sexual relations are nowhere in Scripture attributed to supe* 
rior beings. There is no suggestion that angels are married or 
are given in marriage; the contrary is expressly declared (Matt* 
xxii. 30). Male and female deities have no place in the Bible, 
except as a heathen notion which is uniformly reprobated. The 
Hebrew language does not even possess a word for 'goddess. 
The whole conception of sexual life, as connected with God or 
angels, is absolutely foreign to Hebrew thought, and for that 
reason cannot be supposed to be countenanced here. 

"The sole foundation for this mistaken interpretation is the 



$& THE KARRATIVE OW TFftC DELtTG* 

allegation that 'sons of God* must, according to Scripturat 
usage, mean 'angels;' which, however, is not the case. Even 
if that were the more usual and obvious interpretation of the 
phrase, which it is not, the connection in which it stands would 
compel us to seek a different meaning for it here, if that were 
possible, and one which would be compatible with marriage. 
'Sons of God' is a poetic designation of angels occurring three 
times in the book of Job; and a like expression is found twice 
in the Psalms in the same sense,"* 

Dr. Green appears to insist that the passage under 
discussion means the intermarriage of a godly with an 
ungodly race, hut we do not find that he attempts to 
Specify who either race were. If the writers of the 
epistles of II Peter and Jude did not have this episode 
in mind, to what did they refer? Dr. Green does not 
attempt to explain. It is commonly held that these, 
two writers, whoever they were, quoted from the book 
of Enoch; for the punishment of the angels, long delay- 
ed, corresponds closely in all three writings. The tale 
in the book of Enoch was either founded directly upon 
Gen. vi. 1-8, or, it may be, upon an ancient version of 
which the account in Genesis is only a brief abstract. 
According to the canons of historical criticism the mo- 
ment that supernatural beings are introduced into a 
narrative it ceases to be historical and at once becomes 
legendary and mythological. 

There has been much diversity of opinion among 
theological writers as to the meaning of the 120 years: 
spoken of in verse 3. Two views have commonly been 
prevalent, one that human life thereafter should not 
exceed that number of years, and the other, that the 

«- — ,„ v g- 

• W. H. Green, The Unity of Genesis, pp. 53, 64. 



TO1 80K8 OF OOD, FTC— FLOOD CHRONOLOGY 5S 

tpecified term is in reference to the then future limit 
«f the Antediluvian world, during which the wickedness 
ef man was to be endured. The former view is contra- 
dicted by the reputed ages of patriarchal persons, who 
were born after the Flood, e. g. Terah 205; Abraham 
175; Sarah, his wife, 127; Isaac 180; and Jacob 147 years 
old. Here the contradiction, if contradiction it is, lies 
between the Jehovist and the Priestly Writer. E. Wor- 
cester takes the first view mentioned, and Dr. Green 
the latter. 

Dnring the first half of the last century and even 
longer, there existed iu this country among writers of 
popular literature a slavish adherence to Ussher's sys- 
tem of Biblical chronology. James Ussher was born in 
Dublin, Ireland, in 1580. He was made archbishop of 
Armagh in 1624 and was the author of several theolog- 
ical works. He chanced to be at Oxford, England, 
when the Puritan Revolution broke out and never saw 
bis native country again, but died in England in 1656. 
His system of Biblical chronology was formulated in 
1651, but as there Here many chronological systems 
known to the learned, Ussher's was never fully accepted 
by them. However, about the year 1701 it began to be 
used in the top margins of English family bibles and in 
that way it became stamped upon the minds of English 
speaking people like some religious dogma snd so con- 
tinued until shown to be totally inadequate in the last 
quarter of the nineteenth century, by the advancement 
of knowledge. 

According to the Hebrew version of the Bible the 
Flood took place 1656 years after the Creation, and 
which UssherSjS chronology made to have occurred 2548 
years b. c. According to the Samaritan Pentateuch the 



WS 3? ARRATIVE QT THH DBLUOt 



Interval between the Creation and Flood was only 13Q? 
year*; other codices 2242 to 2262 years, and Josepho* 
2256 years. The worth lesftness of chronologies whick 
vary 966 years is readily apparent. Dr. Green make*, 
the following: remarks on primitive chronology as de- 
duced from the early genealogies: 

"It should be remarked here that no computation of time is 
eter built in the Bible upon this or any other genealogy. 
There is no summation of the years from Adam to Noah* or 
from Noah to Abraham, as there is ot the abode in Egypt 
(Ex. zii. 4Q), or of the period from the exodus to the building 
of the temple (& Kin. vi. r). And as the received chronol- 
ogies and the generally accepted date of the flood and of the 
creation of the world are derived from computations based •& 
these genealogies, it ought to be remembered that this is a very 
precarious mode of reckoning. This genealogy could only 
afford a safe estimate of time on the assumption that no link* 
are missing and that every name in the line of descent has been 
recorded. The analogy of other biblical genealogies is decid* 
edly against it. Very commonly unimportant names are 
omitted. No one has a right, therefore, to denominate a 
primeval chronology so constructed from the biblical chronol- 
ogy and set it in opposition to the deductions of science, and 
thence conclude that there is a conflict between the Bible and 



science, 



»»# 



Both the Jehovist and the Priestly Writer appear 
from what have been preserved of their respective nar- 
ratives to give some idea of the duration of the flood. It 
is stated by critics that the Jehovist makes the flood to 
have lasted not over 61 days and the Priestly Writer 
a year and some days over. Both calculations, based 

* ! / ' 

* W. H. Green, The Unity of Genesis, pp. 49, 60. 



THE 80KS OF GOD, STC— FLOOD CHHONOLOGY 55 

Upon the numbers and days of the month given in either 
account may be somewhat complex. First as to the 
Jehoyist. He makes the downpour of rain to have 
continued 40 days and nights, at the end of which time 
the flood is presumably supposed to have reached its 
height; then at that time the raven is sent forth from 
the ark. The interval to the sending out of the dove is 
not stated in the text but since the Jehovist here made 
use of periods of seven days he is supposed to have 
meant that number of days though not distinctly ex- 
pressed. Then 7 days after the first sending out of the 
dove the bird was sent forth a second time and returned 
at evening with the olive leaf, a sign that the waters 
had nearly subsided. This made 54 days, but Noah 
remained in the ark yet 7 other days, before coming 
forth from the ark, making a total of 61 days. This sum- 
mation is nearer the short Babylonian reckoning than 
that of the Priestly Writer. But it is held by some 
writers that the forty days mentioned in chap. viif. 6 
at the end of which Nonh sent forth the raven, should 
be understood as an additional forty days to the pre- 
viously mentioned forty days and nights rain and that 
these additioijjd torn days ate to be allowed for the 
partial subsidence of the flood. Thi* looks reasonable 
enough and in that ease it would increase the Jehovist's 
estimate of the duration c f the flood to 101 days. 

'•If the narrative be taken as a whole there need be no 
discrepancy. P's longer period is of itself more in keeping 
with the magnitude of the catastrophe, even as described by 
J; and the assumption of the critics that J meant to confine the 
actual flood within forty days can be shown by the text itself to 
^unwarrantable. For (i) forty days is expressly given by 



56 THE NARRATIVE OF THE DELUQS 



J as the period when 'the rain was upon the earth', i. e. whet 
the' cataclysm was in process (chap. vii. 12, 17); and (2) t$ 
separated by a second forty days (chap. viii. 6) by the mention 
of an interval of gradual subsidence of the waters— 'the waters 
^turned from off the earth continually* (chap. viii. 2, 3; alsdj.) 
—which in P in the same verse dates at one hundred and fifty 
<Jay3. J's second forty days, therefore, with the three weeks 
in sending out the birds equate with P's interval of two months 
between chap. viii. 5 and chap. viii. 13, which covers the same 
period, and the discrepancy disappears."* 

There is a kind of exegesis whereiu those who oppose 
the higher critical methods strain the text into meaning 
about what they wish it to mean and Dr. Geeen was 
notably an exegete of this sort. Prof. Orr, above quot- 
ed, remarked that he would not be disposed to go as far 
as Dr. Green in regard to some things along the lines 
jiere mentioned. But in the flood narrative we man- 
ifestly have two different writers to reckon with, each 
of whom had a different style, and somewhat different 
ideas as to its details and duration and who wrote at 
jvidely separated times. Nor did the editors who blend- 
fed the two narratives into a mosaic whole seem to have 
cared to try to harmonize every minor discrepancy. 
Each separate writer's portion of the narrative, there- 
fore, should be taken as it stands and as each evidently 
meant that it should be understood. 

Next comes the longer reckoniug of the Priestly 
Writer. Here, like the measure of the cubit, the ex- 
act result may be rendered a little doubtful unless we 
are satisfied as to what calendar he reckoned by, but 
in either case the variation in days will hot amount to 

f" * James Orr, The Problem of the Old Testament, p. 350, 



THK $OJSB-Or G01>, iTC— FLOOD CHfiQWOLQGY 57 

much. The estimate of the Priestly Writer depends 
upon whether his reckoning was by lunar months or 
the reckoning that made the year to consist of 365 day 
or the solar year. Then the "one hundred and fifty 
,days ,r of this writer also introduces a disturbing factor 
into the calculation based on the mouths named, 

/'The early Hebrews employed the lunar month of 29 days, 
j 2 hours and 44 minutes. Twelve such months contained 354 
days; adding eleven days we have 365 days. The author 
therefore evidently wishes to show that the Flood lasted a full 
solar year. But with this supposition his other calculations of 
time do not agree. Between the seventeenth day of the second 
month, when Noah entered the ark, and the seventeenth day 
of the seventh month, when the ark rested on Ararat, exactly 
-five months elapsed. If, as we suppose, these are lunar 
months, they would consist of 147 or 148 days. On the con- 
trary, the author says distinctly that they were one hundred 
and fifty days, or even more than one hundred and fifty days* 
if we allow a little time for the settling of the waters before the 
-ark grounded. In this case, after all, the author had in mind 
a month of thirty days, not the old lunar month. This is a* 
inconsistency, or perhaps we had better say a difficulty. The 
354 x 11 — 365 days is very attractive as assigning a full solar 
year to the Flood; while on the other hand, 360 x II — 371 or 
365 x 11 — 376, has no significance. " 

"Dillman rightly admits that we have here two inconsistent 
calculations, prohably from two different hands. One repre" 
sents the Flood as las ing for a full solar year (354 x II days)* 
The other calculation represents the Flood as 1 50 days in 
coming and doubtless as 150 days in going; or, as lasting 300 
; days, i. e. ten months of thirty days. Perhaps this writer 
originally added two months for the drying of the earth, which 
^ould round out a year of 360 days. It will be noticed that 



58 THE NAKKATIVE OF THK DELUGE 

: . ~ — — : ~ i i ii - US*? 

the introduction of the one hundred and fifty days, which 
caused so much disturbance, is not necessary for tbe calculation; 
of the Flood, which rests on months and days of months. If 
the one hundred days were added by the editor, it is strange 
that he did not harmonize them better with the forty days of 
the Jehovist. 

"As for the time of year when the Flood began, we are told 
tfcat it began in the second month on the seventeenth day of 
the month. The old Hebrew calendar dated the beginning of 
the year from the autumn. It is true, in the later parts of the 
Pentateuch, the Priestly Writer states that the year began in 
the spring with the month Nisan (April), but he represents 
that change as introduced by Moses (Ex. xii. 2), so that wo 
may be sure he would not commit the mistake of regarding 
this system as in vogue at the time of the Flood. With him* 
therefore, the year began with Tishri (roughly, October), and 
the second month would be Marcheschvan, or November^ 
when the heavy rains of Palestine began to fall. Why the 
seventeenth day of the month was selected and not the fif- 
teenth, on which the full moon falls, has not been discovered."* 

* E. Worcester, Genesis in the Light of Modern Knowledge; 
pp. 349—352. In several places in the foregoing extracts written 
numbers in the copy before us have here been changed to figures, 
The meaning of '360' impresses the mind more readily than when 
written or printed as three hundred and sixty. The author, 
however, used numerals at two or three points within the limits 
above quoted. 



MOUNT ARARAT 53 



TV. 

MOUNT ARARAT. 

Thk Mount Ararat of the maps lies on the most north- 
wsstern confines of Persian territory, the Russian, but 
Asiatic, province of Caucassia inrmediateiy north and 
the Turkish province of Armenia immediately to the 
•east. Its situation is in about 39 degrees North Lati- 
tude, in this country closely corresponding with Caper 
May, New Jersey. It is about equidistant between 
the southern end of the Caspian Sea and eastern end of 
the Black Sea. The country adjacent is a plateau,, it* 
self about 3,000 feet above sea level, and from this ele- 
vation the mountain towers to an attitude of 17,112 feet 
above sea level, the culminating point of a mountainous 
region. Ararat U a volcanic cone and its lofty height 
carries its summit far into the region of perpetual snow 
and ice with which the upper portion of the mountain 
doubtless has been covered, like the Alps, since the last 
Glacial epoch, on the supposition that the cone has 
since remained quiescent. On one side is Little Ararat, 
a more perfect but less lofty cone than the other. 

In former times the popular belief was to the effect 
that the ark had grounded on the very summit of Mount 
Ararat, a natural inference, perhaps, from the text, "in 
the tenth month, on the first day of the month, werte 
the tops of the mountains seen," that is, several weeks 
after the ark came to a reet "upon the mountains of 
Ararat." It was not until the summer of 1829 that any 
European traveler succeeded in reaching the summit 
and previously it was the con mon belief of the Arme- 



•60 THE NARRATIVE Of TITS DELUGE 

5 -_ = . lt> 

niaus that such ascent was impossible. Later in the 
century the same feat was occasionally accomplished 
by other travelers. One who ascended Ararat in 1868 
declared that no mountain he had ever seen made on 
him the impression of the "Armenian -Giant," whose 
sides for 9,000 feet were covered with snow. Now when 
aarae definite knowledge of the Ararat of the maps 
began to be acquired, doubts began to be expressed in 
commentaries and other literature that had any occa- 
sion to treat of Noah's #ood, whether or not this could 
be the mountain on which the ark rested,, and much 
discussion was elicited. 

An abstract of a lecture, so far as it ^concerns Mount 
Ararat, delivered by Captain Bertram Dickson before 
the Royal Geographical Society, in 1909, has been 
quoted infpopular literature, a part of which follows. 

"The country east of the Tigris was known to the ancient 
Assyrians as the mountains of Nari, and at other times as the 
Niphates and the mountains of Urartu, from which comes the 
name Ararat. The Bible historian took the account of the 
ark resting on Ararat from the Chaldean legend, which made 
it rest on the mountain of Urartu; while local traditions, 
Christian. Moslem and Yezid alike make its restsng place 
Jebel Judi, a striking sheer rocky wall 'of *7,oco feet which 
frowns over Mesopotamia. 

"Common sense also suggested that with a subsiding flood 
in the plains, a boat would most probably run aground on the 
high ridge at the edge of the plain than on a solitary peak 
miles from the plains with many high ridges intervening. 
The lecturer thought himself that the local tradition had the 
greater element of truth . 

There is a large ziarat (sanctuary) at the top of Jebel Judi, 
Where every year in August is held a great fete, attended by 



MOUNT ABA RAT 6tl 



thousands of energetic Moslems, Christians and Yezidis, whe 
climb the steepest of trails, or 7,000 feet in the terrific sum- 
mer's heat to do homage to Noah. 

"The mountain seems to have been held sacred at all times, 
and certainly it has a wonderful fascination about it, with its 
high presipices, and jagged, tangled crags watching oyer the 
yast Mesopotamian plains." 

Edward Hitchcock was born in Deer field, Mass., in 
1793 and for many years in his later life he held the 
position of president of Amherst College in his native 
state. In 1830 be was appointed state geologist of 
Massachusetts. In 184 J «Ue .published a text-book of 
Geology, which in the next twenty years went through 
many editions and was the principal predecessor of 
Dana's "Manual of Geology/' which was first issued ig 
1802. Hitchcock was especially interested in the re- 
lations of the developing science of his time to Religion, 
or more properly speaking, to long established theo- 
logical dogmas. Besides occasional sketches and ly* 
ceum and college lectures, he published a book or two 
on the subject, one of which he called "The Religion of 
Oeology." Like Hugh Miller's "Testimony of the 
Bocks" it was an attempt to harmonize the indisputable 
facts of science with the apparent teachings of the 
Bible and to allay popular prejudices. The mature life 
of both authors was contemporary with the controversy 
over the age of the earth, with which the story of the 
flood became mixed up as a subordinate issue. Id the 
book mentioned, Hitchcock devotes a chapter to various 
phases of the Deluge question. The extract that follows 
expresses his opinion in regard to the resting place of 
the ark, a narrative that he took to hp historical, 



62 THE NARRATIVE Ofc IfiSB 1JBLUQE 



•'We are here met by a serious objection to the hypothesis 
which gives only a limited extent to the deluge. If the pre^ 
sent Mount Ararat, in Armenia, is the mountain on which the 
ark 6rst rested, a deluge which covered its top must, by its 
flux and reflux, have overspread nearly all other portions of 
the globe, for that mountain rises seventeen thousand feet 
above the ocean. But we are intormed by Jerome, that the 
name Ararat was given generally to the mountains of Armenia; 
(indeed, that is the meaning of the name;)) and long before 
geology existed, Shuckford suggested that some spot farther 
east corresponds better with the Scriptural account of .the place 
where the ark rested. For it is said of the families of the 
sons of Noah, that, as they journeyed from the east, the? 
*©und a plain in the land of Shmar. Now, Shinar, or Baby- 
16nia, lies nearly south of the Armenian Ararat, and the prob* 
ability, therefore, is, that the true Ararat, from whose vicinity 
the descendants of Noah probably emigrated, lay much farther 
to the south. Again, if the ark rested upon the present Ara- 
rat, it is impossible, except ;by a miracle, that those who came 
out of it could have reached the plain below; for so exceed- 
singly difficult of access is it, that it is doubtful whether, since 
the deluge, any one ever succeeded in reaching its summit, tiM 
{be year r82Q. That the almost universal tradition of Eastern 
nations should have fixed upon that mountain as the resting 
place of the ark is not strange, considering that there is no 
other mountain in all Asia so striking to behold. 

"But upon the whole, the probability is strong that some 
other elevation, less lofty and steep, was the radiating point of 
the postdiluvian races of man and other animals. The fact *f 
Noah's sending out a dove from the ark which came back in 
the evening with an olive leaf in her mouth, strengthens the 
preceding view. For neither upon the present Ararat, nor 
around it, does the olive grow, because it is too cold. Indeed, 
£11 its upper part is covered with perpetual ice. But if the 



MOUtfT ARARAT 



6S 



Ararat of Scripture lay nearer the tropics, the olive might find 
apon it a congenial spot "* 

Sir Walter Raleigh, in his History of the World, 
did not regard Mount Ararat as the resting place of the, 
ark but placed it far within the depressed area which 
contains the Caspian and Aral seas, "certainly no* 
without some show of reason," remarks Hugh Miller. 

With writers who do not accept the flood story a* 
historical, or at best, who regard the legend as a varia. 
^le tradition that was based in the first place upon, 
some purely physical calamity to the early dwellers of 
the Chaldean plains, also discuss the supposed resting 
place of the ark. With them the question is, what 
special mountain, if any, to the north or northeast of 
the Persian Gulf, Hebrew and Babylonian writers had 
in mind in their versions of the flood narrative? Or 
was it only a mythical mountain conjectured to exist 
somewhere to the northward. The Priestly Writer, 
precise as he often is in regard to details, does not 
specify any particular mountain peak, but rather uses 
a general term, "the mountains of Ararat." 

Mount Ararat is said to be an extinct volcano. AU 
of the ice on high mountains is formed from snow that 
has become changed to glaciers. The annual accumu- 
lations of snow and ice above are gradually dissipated 
around the snow line below, by melting glaciers, snow 
slides or avalanches, or sometimes as shaken down by 
earthquakes, which latter happened among the moun- 
tains of Armenia in 1840. 



* % Hitchcock, The Religion of Geology, Boston, 1851. pp, 139,40 



64 SOME OLD-TIME VIEW* OS THB DELUGE 

V. 

SOME OLD-TIME VIEWS OP THE DELUGE. 

Before giving some account of the various opinion* 
that have been held at different periods in the last two 
hundred years and more respecting the Deluge, and in 
English speaking countries, say from the time of John 
Milton onwards, we may first stop to enquire what were 
4he views held by the Hebrew writers themselves in 
regard to the tradition that had came down to them from 
earlier generations. No doubt each believed the com- 
mon tradition; yet probably both writers were aware 
that it was current in variable versions. Each of the 
two writers seem to have moulded the story according 
to his own judgment. The later Priestly Writer had 
the JE redaction as the basis of his own narratives but 
he was also acquainted with one or more Babylonian 
versions. His moulding of the story is with somewhat 
more detail than the Jehovist, but while his document 
probably contained the episode of the sending out of 
the birds, we may doubt his tolerance of the account of 
Noah's sacrifice. 

The geographical knowledge of the ancient Hebrews 
was comparatively limited, comprising for the most 
part some ideas of countries in western Asia, the is- 
lands of the Mediterranean Sea adjacent to the coast of 
Asia Minor, and of Egypt and Libya, with occasional 
vague reports of more distant regions. The earth is aflat 
plane, its surface corrugated with hills and mountains. 
Above the vaulted dome of the sky exists an ocean of 
water below which the heavenly bodies— sun, moon and 



SOME OLD-TlME VIEW* OF THE DELUGB 66 

stars — revolved in their courses attendant upon thfe 
dearth. Below the plane of the earth there is a subter- 
ranean ocean like the one above the sky, and below 
that still is a cavernous world called Sheol, the abode 
*>f spirits, in which the fallen angels are imprisoned. 
To a greater or less extern this primitive cosmogony 
was derived from the Babylonians, indirectly, perhaps. 
through the Cauaanites who used the Babylonian Cunei- 
form writing to some extent about the time of the Exo- 
dus. The Jehovist took no account of the "fountains of 
the deep," but on the other hand, it can be seen from 
his narratives of the creation and flood that the Priestly 
Writer was somewhat imbued with the Babylonian 
cosmogony, which he purified of its polytheistic cast* 
$n the account of the creation this writer undoubtedly 
refers to the seas aud oceans when he speaks of the 
waters under the firmament, but in his part of the flood 
story where he speaks of the fountains of the deep be= 
sing broken up, he seems to have in mind the abyss or 
gulf of waters that the ancient Hebrews and Babylo- 
nians supposed to exist deep under the surface of the 
earth. In his creation narrative again, his reference 
'to the waters above the firmament may be a modifica- 
tion of the ancient celestial ocean view and merely 
-refer to atmospheric waters, as commonly interpreted. 

In his time, Hitchcock candidly acknowledged that 
some parts of the Bible were influenced by the cosmical 
views just mentioned. In the book already quoted he 
says: "It was the opinion of the ancients that the 
earth, at a certain height, was surrounded by a trans- 
parent hollow sphere of solid matter, which they called 
-the firmament. When rain descended they supposed 



gS THE NARRATIVE OP THE DELUGE 

, _ ^ 

it was through windows or holes, made in this crystal inc 
curtain suspended in mid-heaven. To these notions 
the language of the Bible is frequently conformed. "* 

"So the Priestly Writer explains the coming of the Flood 
strictly in accordance with his cosmical views laid down in his 
j&rst chapter of Genesis. The flood waters came from two 
sources: first, from the great abyss (Tehom) beneath the 
earth, whose depths, confined by God at creation, suddenly 
burst their bonds, These fountains, rising through subterra- 
nean channels, overwhelm the earth, as they did before Elo- 
him separated them from the dry land. Secondly, the heavenly 
reservoirs contribute their quota. Elohim opens the windows 
of the firmament which holds the upper waters in check, and 
lets them pour down in rain upon the earth. In short, the 
world returns to chaos, and the coming of the flood is far 
more powerfully depicted than by the Jehovist's forty days of 
rain."t 

We have now gotten some insight into the cosmical 
vfews of the Priestly Writer and those of the J<ehoyis$ 
may in some measure be inferred from the second ac- 
count of creation and his naive story of the Garden of 
Eden. The known world of these writers seems, in the 
main, those countries then occupied by the white race and 
not all even of these. Their world, then, was comparative- 
ly limited. Whatever might be known of the mountains 
of Armenia, they were doubtlens considered to be the 
highest in the world. Their knowledge of animal life 
was also limited, and with an ark of the dimensions 
calculated, it was supposed to be large enough to hold 

* E. Hitchcock, The Religion of Geology, p. 9. 
+ E. Worcester, Genesis in the Light of Modern Knowledge, 
pp. 339, 340. 



SOME OLD-TIME VrEWS OF THE DELUGM 67 

specimens of them all, Including provision for them* 
A* for the carnivorous kind, it is to be inferred that 
the writers believed that, for the time being they must 
|iave subsisted upon vegetable food. It is evident, too, 
that they believed the flood to have been universal over 
the limited and flatly extended earth of their concep- 
tions and that the animal world and all people was such 
as had descended directly from what had been saved in 
the ark. Of course no provision was made for aquatic 
forms of life, as it was supposed that these could not 
perish in a flood. It is easy to infer also that the Priest- 
ly Writer held the view that the ark had grounded 
upon the top of one of the highest mountains of the 
world, since he allowed about ten weeks for the waters 
sufficiently to subside to lay bare the tops of the nearest 
lower mountains. Now we shall find as we follow up 
the changeful history of opinions in respect to the story 
of the flood, that views derived from it and also from 
the first chapters of Genesis, continued to influence 
the popular masses long into the nineteenth century; 
that certain views so derived began coming into colli- 
sion with advancing modern knowledge, inaugurating a 
period of resistance, but ending at last, if the case be- 
came urgent as in Geology, wfth some makeshift of a 
compromise called a "reconciliation." In the middle 
•decades of the last century this, too, had to be effected 
in regard to the common belief that the Deluge had 
been universal as to the surface of the earth. This 
controversy will be dealt with in a future section. 

The earlier controversies of the pre-scientific era 
wherein the Deluge was concerned, sprang up over the 
mature of fossils, and inaugurated what might be called 



08 THE NARRATIVE OF TtfS DELUOB 

i ■ ■ ■ 'i ' i — — — — i , i 

the diluTian theory of fossil remains, or the view thai 
fossil bones and shells are relics of the Noachian del- 
uge. Home of the old Greek and Roman writers, suck 
as Strabo, (about a. d. 50) held tolerably correct views 
of the matter, and so also did some of the later Saracen 
writers under the Mahommedan rule in Spain. Among 
early Christian writers the last flicker of reason is said 
to have died out with Tertullian who wrote about a, d. 
200. Discussions over the nature of fossil remains in 
Christian countries now had to await the revival of 
learning. Meanwhile it was more or less the belief of 
many that the Deluge must have left some traces on 
the earth. Thus, Martin Luther suggested that if search 
w:ih ma<ie about the iron mines of Saxony, where ex* 
iCHVHtions were in progress, some such trace* might be 
found. 

Among the Schoolmen of the Middle Ages a question 
much discussed in relation to fossil shells was whether 
they were "sports of nature" or had once been living 
/Organisms. Their crude explanations are well known 
h,ut as Theology was then dominant nnd intolerant of 
,any views that might be called heresy, their opinions 
may not always have been sincere. Says Hitchcock: 
*'At the beginning of the eighteenth century numer- 
ous theologians in England, France, <£ermany and 
Italy, engaged eagerly in the controversy respecting 
organic remains. The point which they discussed with 
the greatest zeal, was the connection of fossils with the 
deluge of Noah. That these were all deposited by that 
event, was for more than a century the prevailing doc- 
trine, which was maintained with great assurance; and 
a denial of it regarded as nearly equivalent to a denial 
Of the whole Bible." 



90M^ (\LD-TIHK VIEWS 0£ THE DELUGS 69 

Speaking now of England in especial, the wars of 
Cromwell in the middle of the seventeenth century appear 
to have stimulated the intellect of the nation. Follow- 
ing the Restoration there came a period of literary 
activity. It was the age of Milton and Bun van, and 
other noted British writers. During the last half of 
that century some writers began payiug attention to 
natural history, and so the old question of the School- 
men concerning fos»ils began to be revived. The most 
of these writer* decided that fossils were not sports of 
nature, but had really contained living organisms. It 
must be remembered that it was marine petrifactions, 
usually of shell-fish, found in the soil inland sometimes 
many miles from the sea, that attracted the most notice 
and stimulated curiosity. And the opinion, not then 
wholly new, became quite generally established that 
fossil remains were relics of the Noachian deluge. 
But Robert Hooke, an English physician whose post- 
humous paper* were published in 1668, denied that 
fossils had any connection with the Deluge. Ray, a 
naturalist, who published a work in 1692, held similar 
views. 

About the close of that century and later a number 
of "theories of the earth" were published which gave 
full rein to the imagination. As noted as any of them 
was Burnett's "Sacred Theory of the Earth," published 
in 1684. These visionary works made much out of the 
Deluge, holding the view that the present world is but 
the shattered wreck of a once magnificent original that 
had been ruined by the Fall of Man and still further 
defaced by the Flood. These works abounded in terri- 
ble pictures and some of them continued popular long 
after their absurdities had become apparent to the 



70 THE NARRATIVE OF THE D£LCGB 

learned. This has ever been repeated in regard to the 
advancement of knowledge, the uneducated masses, as 
a whole, always being the last to be convinced of the 
validity of some new and rational view. 

It having been decided quite generally by English 
naturalists that fossils had been living organisms, it 
soon stirred up another question. Fossil shells found 
in the soil of the fields or on high hills, more or lets 
identical with those of the sea-shore, might well be 
accounted for by the Deluge, but how came fossils to be 
embedded in thick limestone strata? The world was 
supposedly only about 6000 years old and the rocks 
created much as they now are in an instant of time. 
To get over this difficulty, <Mie, Woodward, a professor 
in medicine, resorted to a sweeping hypothesis. In a 
work published in 1695 he maintained that at the time 
of the Deluge the whole terrestrial globe had been dis- 
solved, the comminuted materials settling in the water 
according to their specific gravity, later hardening int© 
various rock strata. 

The next century was rife with all sorts of theories 
and speculations in various fields of knowledge, yet 
no great advance was made because men had not learn- 
ed closely to investigate Nature. Until that spirit 
could be born and data accumulated, no real advance 
in science was possible. Hence the diluvian theory 
was not overthrown in English speaking conutries for 
upward of 150 years after the time of the writers mention- 
ed. We shall find it still in evidence being maintained, 
but complicated with another question, the extent of the 
Deluge, through more than the first half of the nine- 
teenth century. It should be observed that the decision 
4bat fossils had bfen living organisms was an advance 



8CM9 OLD-TIM R VIEWS OF THK DRLTO1 71 

over the petrified notions of the Schoolmen. It has been 
said that had our mo«t astute geologists lived in the 
time of the theorists mentioned, they could haye given 
no better explanation of fossil remains than thej did, 
for they would have lacked the physical data upon 
which to have based a more correct view. 

Perhaps Schenchzer, a naturalist of Zurich, did more 
to perpetuate the diluvian theory in the eighteenth 
oentury than any other writer. He paid considerable 
attention to fossils, more to vegetal than animal, which 
he attributed to the Deluge. He did not accept the 
extravagant views of the English writers. He recog- 
nized the tropical character of some of his specimens 
and doubted if any were really extinct. He was, as an 
authority, to the eighteenth century much what Cuvier 
i»nd Humboldt were to the first half of the nineteenth 
-century. His work on fossils was published in 1709 
and although he died in 1738 his authority was hardly 
questioned until the last decade of the century. 

In 1724 there was started the Physico-Theological 
school, founded by one, Hutchinson, a pupil of Wood 
ward, whose writers evinced a dogmatic and intolerant 
spirit. These writers showed a disposition to merge 
what little of science there was then in the world with 
Theology in one general system of philosophy. This 
school exercised a pernicious influence on English 
thought and literature for more than a century. As 
late as 1761 Catcott, who belonged to the Hutchinson- 
ian school published a work exclusively devoted to the 
Deluge. While he wrote sensibly of diluvial currents 
and some other matters he nevertheless maintained the 
dissolution of the earth at the time of the Deluge. For 
this view he tried to adduce Scriptural support, citing 



72 THE NARRATIVE 0* THR DELUGR 

■ !■■■■ i ■ . . * m 

various texts, interspersed with interpretations of his 
own, for example: " ( xod uttered bis voice, the earth 
melted, [flowed, dissolved to atoms.]" 

The writings of Scheuchzer and others stimulated 
many persons to begin making collections of fossils for 
themselves, and what threatened the permanence of the 
dominant theory was the fact that some began institut- 
ing comparisons between the remains they had collect- 
ed and living species. That was laying the basis for 
the development of the science of Comparative Anato* 
my, before which the diluvian theory could not stand* 
(^ulte generally this theory continued to vitiate publi- 
cations on the subject all through that century. 

Between 1775 and the end of the first decade of the 
nineteenth century, Geology began struggling into 
9)ti#tence as a new Mcience. At first it was regarded as 
part of the speculations oi that century. In part it 
grew out of the contiuued published discussions over 
fossil* and the fossiliferou* strata; but more than that 
the science developed out of »peeulations on the origin 
of mineral ores theorized over in mining schools. 

lu 1804 Schlotheim in Germany published a work ou 
fossils in which lie laid down new principles. Impress* 
rA with a great age for the earth as alrendy maintained 
by the few geologists of the time, he held that fossils 
are generally extinct forms of organic life and had 
belonged to a former (or Pre-Adamite) world. This 
Vortrage or former world view was taken np by other 
German writers and with the publications of Cuvier 
and Brogniart in the early part of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, and development by Cuvier of Comparative 
Anatomy, the old theory of fossil remains collapsed in 
prance and Germany so far as the learned were con- 



80MB OLD-TIME VIEWS Of THE DELUGE 7$ 

cenied. But this did not so readily affect the early 
geologists of Great Britain, least of all various writers 
in America. In science, however, the collapse of a 
long maintained false theory dates from the time that 
it ceases to be maintained by eminent writers of some 
representative nation. 

Turning again to Geology, it may be remarked that 
so long as the theologians saw in these discussions only 
philosophical speculations, geologists were not likely 
to be attacked. But to maintain that the discussions 
were deductions based upon physical facts and capable 
of verification by obseavation, was altogether a different 
matter. The theologians saw that this view appeared 
to call in question the first page of the Bible as they 
understood it. In 1749 the French naturalist, Buffon, 
following Leibnitz, made an attempt to state a few plate 
geological principles; but hi* views offended the faculty 
of the Sorbonne at Far is, who compelled him ignomious- 
ly to publish a recantation. In England about 1786 the 
poet Cowper is found sounding a note of alarm in his 
verse. Then in 1804, Chalmers, at the time a young 
anan of twenty-five years of age, is found trying to allay 
the prejudices of a Scotch audience by asserting: "This 
is a false alarm; the writings of Moses do not fix the 
antiquity of the globe/' 

Some early Knglish geologists were William Smith, 
Buckland, Conjbeare, Sedgewick and Phillips; but no 
.controversial outbreak seems to have begun until after 
Lyell commenced publishing his ''Principles of Geol- 
ogy" in 1830. Granviile Penn, however, opened the 
way by publishing a book against geologists in 1825. 



74 THE NARRATIVE 0£ T$E DELUDE 

VI. 

THE ERA OF THE COMMENTATORS. 

In heading this section "The Era of the Commentators'* 
reference is had, not so much to the time when their 
works were first published, as to the period when they 
exercised the greatest influence on the masses of the 
people, more especially the religious portion of the 
people, both in Great 'Britain and America. This was 
mainly during the first half of the nineteenth century, 
8ome notice will be taken of the rising school of Geol- 
ogy in its bearing on the Noschian deluge, but largely 
observations will be made on the attitude of theological 
-writers on the same subject. The period, too, was pro- 
lific of controversies, part iouflarly that waged over the 
age of the earth, in which the narrative of the Deluge 
became involved. A certain point may be stated here. 
Along some intellectual lines in the matter of willing- 
ness to receive and assimilate new ideas, England has 
sometimes lagged about a generation behind Germany, 
and America two generations. In regard to some other 
lines of investigation this disparity between countries 
during the nineteenth century was not so great. These 
remarks apply more to the intelligent classes than the 
multitude. The principal reason is that nations of the 
the same ethnic stock during the period of their intel- 
lectual development do not reach the same psychical 
stages contemporaneously. 

Some of the more noted biblical commentators of the 
latter part of the eighteenth and earlier part of the 
mne^enth centuries were Thomas Scott, Adam Clarke 



THE ERA OS THE O01(U*KHTATO t $8 75 

mid Bagster. We have not been able to ascertain the 
dates of the publication of their commentaries, but 
they were still much in evidence among church people 
in this country in the middle decades of the last cen- 
(ury. Of course the best English biblical, philosophi- 
cal and scientific works of the century originated in 
Oreat Britain, but sooner or later they were reprinted 
in the United States. In this connection we should 
mention the Cottage Bible which had an extensive 
circulation in the eastern states. It was first publish- 
in London in 1833, and althongh not intended for a 
commentary, its exposition of chapters below the text 
and notes on some verses in small type in the bottom 
margins of its double column pages, made it serve the 
purpose of one for the common people. In this country 
it continued to be issued in two octavo volumes, it* 
physical errors remaining uncorrected *o late as 1847. 
This we presume was owing to the fact that the work 
had been sterreotyped for successive editions and hence 
continued to represent the atate of theological opinion 
in regard to Geology prevalent at the time these volumes 
were first issued. From the frequency that Bagster'* 
"Comprehensive Bible" was quoted in its notes we infer 
that the latter work was then recent. 

We may refer in passing to Knglish commentators 
earlier than Scott, Clarke and Baxter, to-wit, Edward 
Stillingfleet (1635-1699) and Matthew Poole (1624-1679), 
whose moderate views in respect to the Deluge we shall 
have occasion to quote. They wrote during the reign 
of Charles II. Partly contemporary with them there 
was Matthew Henry (1662-1714) who published a com- 
mentary on the whole Bible in the early part of the 
^eighteenth century. This large work was practical 



76 THB WABRATITE OF THX DELUGtt 

and devotional rather than critical. The time was to® 
ea rly for critical works in the English language to be 
of much if of any value. It appears that the location 
of the Garden of Eden was already engaging the atten- 
tion of the curious. In general he took the narrative 
of the Deluge, as it reads, as many nineteenth century 
writers did, without attempting to discuss the numerous 
critical questions it suggests to any one somewhat well 
versed in scientific literature. This commentary is 
f till extant since an edition in five octavo volumes was 
issued in New York in i860. 

To return now to later writers. They did not accept 
•the views of Woodward and Catcott, as too many objec- 
tions could be urged against their extravagant theory, 
yet to some extent were influenced by the Hutcbinsonian 
school, more especially by the prevalent diluvian view 
respecting fossil organisms, When Thomas Scott pub- 
lished his commentary be appears to have realized the 
difficulty about collecting specimens of all kinds of 
animals known in his time, with which to replenish the 
earth after what he believed to have been a universal 
deluge, for we find him quoted as saying: "There 
must have been a very extraordinary miracle wrought, 
perhaps by the ministration of angels, in bringing two 
of every species to Noah, and rendering them submis- 
sive to him and peaceable with each other; yet it seems 
not to have made any impression on the hardened spec- 
tators." 

When Scott and Clarke and others wrote, the great 
number of species of animals, birds and insects in the 
world was far from realized and it was supposed that 
the ark was large enough to. contain them all; hence a 
(Universal deluge was commonly postulated and the 



THE ERA OF THE COMMENTATORS 77 

•theological writers regarded fossil remains as an in- 
disputable proof of this supposed fact. Adam Clarke 
interpreted the ''fountains of the deep" rather more 
literally than most later theological writers were will- 
ing to do: ''It appears that an immense quantity of 
water occupied the center of the antediluvian earth; 
and, as this burst forth by the order of God, the cir- 
cumnambient strata must sink in order to fill up the 
vacuum occasioned by the elevated waters." 

Jo the early part of the nineteenth century Guvier 
pu bli*hed an elaborate " Theory of the Earth." The 
geologists had begun to give a limited attention to the 
northern drift which they attributed to the submerg- 
ence of the land, whether by the sea or a deluge, to 
them was not clean Cuvier held the view that the. 
northern hemisphere everywhere bore evidence of a 
great cataclysm which he inferred had taken place no 
farther remote than six thousand years ago. He fur- 
ther supposed that some portions of the original stock 
of the human race had escaped this Cataclysm on three 
•ides and thus given rise to the Mongoloid, Negroid and 
White divisions of the race. The English geologists 
did not take kindly to Cuvier's ethnological hypothesis 
but more or less they accepted his cataclysmic view 
which some of them sought to identify with the Noachian 
deluge. This was particularly the case with Buckland. 

James Buckland (1784-1856) was a clergyman of the 
church of England, but he nevertheless became a noted 
geological writer. He gave considerable attention to 
the fossil bones met with in rock fissures and caves. He 
knew something of stone implements but denied that 
their makers could have been contemporary with the 
extinct mammals whose fossil bones were coming to 



7*8 THE NARRATJV* $$ Tff$: DELy^K 

Hght, nor were English geologists, generally, willing to 
admit this now palpable fact until about 1860. 

In 1821 some laborers engaged in repairing a road, 
discovered the Kirkdale cavern in Yorkshire. The 
cave was found to be of an oblong form, about 250 feet 
in length, its entrance four feet in diameter and sealed 
up by glacial drift. Located in the side of a bill it had 
been hollowed out in Oolitic limestone. The floor of 
the cavern consisted of limy paste enclosing the bones 
ef 'between two and three hundred hyenas, and remains 
of other animals dragged into their den as prey. The 
association of remains seem to point to the second in- 
Serglacial epoch. Buckland explored the cavern and 
in 1823 he published a book on bone caves, etc., entitled 
"Keliquse Dilucvian® or Observations on the Organic 
Eemains Attesting the Action of a Universal Deluge." 
This work, upholding the diluvian hypothesis long after 
its abandonment on the Continent, attracted much 
attention on the part of the learned and continued to 
Influence commentators and other theological writers 
down to the middle of the century at least, especially 
in the United States. 

Buckland's adherence to the diluvian theory was in 
so far as he supposed that the surface deposit* or the 
northern drift and marine shells found inland could be 
attributed to the Deluge, in the state of science at that 
time. This led him to believe that previous to the 
Deluge the Kirkdale cavern had long been a hyena den 
in which generations of those ani m als had lived and 
that the last of them had perished there in the Flood; 
also that the bodies of large animals whose bones were 
found in rock clefts had drifted into them. Fossils m 
&\me$bo®e strata, he knew, had no such origin. 



TBE KR* OF <THE COHMKHTATGE8 7$ 

In 1825 Granville Penn began publishing successive 
editions of a book called by him "Comparative Esti- 
mate of the Mosaieal and Mineral Geologies/' in which 
he attacked the views of geologists and for principles 
af plain geological reasoning he substituted wild and 
fantastic theories. This is the earliest work of that 
kind in book form that we have seen mentioned, though 
during the next thirty years Penn had many imitators, 
not taking account of innumerable articles in less per- 
manent forms of literature. Penn explained the Kirk- 
dale cavern after this fashion : Ignoring the science 
of Comparative Anatomy which decides between living 
ane extinct species, and the fact that most of the bones 
had been gnawed., he maintained that a great number 
of carcasses of animals that had perished in the Flood 
•bad floated northward from intertropical regions, 
and driven by a gale of wind, had been carried as far 
as the north of England. There they were caught in a 
swirl of the subsiding waters and finally sank, being 
subsequently covered deeply under limy sediment. In 
the end the gasses evolved from the putrifying bodies 
inflated the limy matrix in which they were enclosed, 
as a glassblower blows a bottle in its mould, the stalac- 
tites of the cave being the la&t drippings of the lime 
before the whole stratum became set. This ingenious 
theory was more worthy of the times of the Schoolmen 
than of the nineteenth century. In a second edition of 
his book Penn expressed surprise that an Edinburg 
reviewer should merely have stated his "argument" 
without attempting to make any reply to it. 

"For a season, geologists of high standing in our own coun- 
try, such as Buckland and Conybeare, followed Cuvier so far 
as to hold, that the superficial deposits bore evidence everyr 



8p THB NARRATIVE OF T^l P^UQP 



wl^ere of a great cataclysm, the last of the geologic catastro- 
phies; and which might be identified, they believed, with the 
Noachian deluge. Against this view one of the most dis- 
tinguished of Scottish naturalists, Dr. John Fleming, raised a 
vigorous protest as early as the year 1826, and conclusiuely 
showed that no temporary flood could have produced the ex- 
isting appearances. And so thoroughly were his facts and 
reasonings confirmd by subsequent discovery, that the geolo- 
gists of name who had acquiesced, wholly or in part, in the 
Cuvierian view, read in succession their recantations. Dr. 
Buckland in especial, who had written most largely on the 
subject, and committed himself most thoroughly, did so a very 
few years after: nor does the hypothesis of Cuvier appear to 
have been since adopted by any writer of scientific reputa- 
tion."* 



* Hugh Milter, Testimony of the Rocks, Boston, 1875, p. 325. 
First published nearly simultaneously in Great Britain and 
America in 1867. 

Hugh Miiler was born at Cromarty, Scotland, in 1802. Early in 
life he worked at the trade of a fitone-cutter and speculated on 
the fossils in the rocks around Cromarty. Improving his education 
he was called in 1840 to edit the Edinburg Witness in the interest 
of an ecclesiastical turmoil then agitating Scotland. In the fall 
of that year he commenced publishing geological articles in the 
Witness. In the next sixteen years he published several books. 
Jn 1856 he sought to accomplish an impossible task— to ^reconcile 
Genesis and Geology by some permanent scheme calculated to 
satisfy the Christian world. In part from previously prepared 
lectures he wrought out the work above quoted. He never lived 
to see it issue from the press. In its preparation he overwrought 
Jbis brain; a mental malady experienced in light form while 
working as a stone-cutter now began returning at night in a form 
more frightful than ever before, and in one of these paroxcisma 
in the night of December 23, 1856, he killed himself with a revol- 
ver. He slept alone above in his house and the tragedy was not 
discovered until the next morniug. Miller's death caused a pro- 
found impression-inQreat Britain and aisp in America where his 
Writings were becoming well known. 



THE ERA OK THE COMMENTATORS 8i 

Theologians have ever been slow to change any of 
their settled views even after substantial proof has had 
time to accumulate showing that certain ideas held for 
generations are nevertheless incorrect. This was par. 
ticularly the case during the last century. But in the 
controversy over Geology, that in the main, in English 
speaking countries followed in the wake of the publica- 
tion of Lyell's "Principles" (183G-'33, first edition) it 
should be said that many of the clergy took no part in 
it but rather assumed the attitude of waiting for more 
light upon thesubjeet. Many others, however, plunged 
Into the controversy as some always will when some 
long established opinion seems to them threatened with 
an overthrow. We must remember that in the thirties 
physical subjects were not well diffused as matters of 
popular knowledge and that many problems in relation 
to the crust of the earth were only beginning to be 
worked out, so we can now understand better the appar- 
ent backward nature of physical knowledge as put forth 
in commentaries, and in religious literature generally, 
in that part of the last century. The quotations that 
follow have now no value other than as being illustra- 
tive of the state of theological opinions on the subjects 
mentioned in the decades of the twenties and thirties, 
and even much longer in belated instances. 

"The truth of this important fact is shown by evidence ex* 
tsting at the present day. The highest eminences of the earth, 
the Alps, the Apennines, Libanus, Atlas and Ararat; every 
mountain of every region under heaven, where search has been 
made, all conspire in one uniform, universal proof, that they 
all had the sea spread over their highest summits; being found 
to contain shells, skeletons of fish, and sea monsters of every 
j^ind."— Bagster, on Gen. vii. 19. 



82 THE KARBAT1V& OH, THK DBLCOB 

f 

"The most incontestible evidence has been afforded of the 
universality of this fact; the moose-deer, a native of America, 
has been found buried in Ireland, elephants, natives of Asia an& 
Africa, in the midst of England; crocodiles, natives of the 
Nile, in the heart of Germany; and shell- fish, never known in 
any but American seas, with the entire skeletons of whales, in 
the most inland counties of England' ' — Bagster, Gen. vii. 23. 

Now in the way in which the theological writers, 
were accustomed to present their adherence to the 
diluvian view of shells and bones, it certainly placed 
the matter before the multitude of readers and also 
hearers (when adduced in discourses) as a very reason- 
able and even attractive view to hold. This was parr 
ticularly the case with the majority of church people, 
Ignorant of geological writings or prejudiced against 
fhem as the productions of "infidel philosophers." 
There is an aspect of the matter possibly unknown to 
the commentators of that day if unfamiliar with Geol- 
pgy. The nucleus of mountains upheaved from what: 
was once ancient sea bottoms consist of igneous rocks, 
or those once in a melted state. Or, besides, the rocks 
are often metamorphic, once sedimentary, but changed 
by heat and other agencies so that their fossils hajre 
been obliterated. The flanks of many ranges, however, 
have the tilted remains of sedimentary rocks imposed 
upon them. Now the fossil shells observed on the sides 
of mountains had weathered out of such rocks and if 
older than the Tertiary Age, their fossils would belong 
to extinct species. 

In regard to the second quotation, the matter, as 
presented, certainly appeared convinctng to those wha 
knew nothing of Comparative Anatomy, and who were 
enable to distinguish extinct Pleistocene species of 



THE KRA OF THE COMMENTATOR 83 

animals from modern Jiving species by their bones* 
the moose from the Great Irish elk; the Hairy Mam- 
moth from the elephant, or the crocodile from saurians 
of the Jura-Trias and Cretaceous ages. We do not 
know of the remains of whales ever being found in the 
interior of England, but as strata of the ages mentioned 
occur there, the reference may apply to petrified re- 
mains in eonnection with them. In the earlier part of 
the last century the skeleton of a whale was discovered 
in a raised beach some fi fty feet above the surface of 
Lake Champ!ain, or about 150 feet above sea level. At 
the close of the last glacial epoch the valley of the St. 
Lawrence river was depressed about 600 feet below its 
present level and the sea also extended into the basin 
of Lake (Jhamplain, the beach marking the amount of 
the depression in that region. The skeleton of the 
whale, for many years after its discovery, used to be 
cited in theological literature as an evidence that the 
Flood had been universal! 

"Some infidel philosophers have affected great difficulty to 
procure sufficient water to surmount the mountains of the earth 
to the height of 15 cubits, or near 27 feet; but, 1. Though we 
can measure our mountains, we cannot take the gage of the 
antediluvian ones, which might now receive a great accession 
by the drviing of the winds while the waters were subsiding; 
and we know, in fact, that prodigious quantities of petrifactions 
and alluvial deposits were lodged in them. Mount Ararat 
was probably one of their highest mountains, though by no 
means one of the highest of the present globe. 2. Suppose 
they were as high as Chimborazo (20,000 feet, or nearly four 
miles perpendicularly) still there is a chemical process carried 
on in nature, whereby, if the Almighty so pleased, (without a 
aew creation) the gases of the atmosphere might be converted 



.££ TEUB ^ABRATIVE OF THE DELTOJ 

into water. There can be no need, therefore, to look for the 
tail of a comet, or borrow waters from the moon, as some have 
been disposed to do;" 

It now appears from the science of Meteorology that 
the "chemical process" referred to would raise the ocean 
level a few inches onlj. In regard to variations of the 
oqean level, Hugh Miller, wrote: "While -the medium 
level of the ocean is one of the most fixed lines in na- 
ture, the level of {jhe great continents, with their table 
lands and mountains, is an ever fluctuating line. It 
may seem strange that the land should be less stable 
than water. . . . And yet, while we have no evidence 
whatever that the sea le.vel has changed during at 
?ieast the ages of the Tertiary formations, and absolute- 
ly jknow that it could not have varied more than a few 
yards, or at most a fe,w fathoms, we have direct evb 
deuce that during that time great mountain chains 
many thousand feet in height, such as the Alps, have 
arisen from the -bottom ,of the ocean."* 

Six John Leslie, in prie of the editions of the Encyc- 
lopedia Britannica, had occasion to state.: "Supposing 
the vast canopy of air, by some sudden .change of in- 
ternal constitution, at orice to discharge its wbol© 
watery store, this precipitate would form a sheet of 
scarcely five inches thick over the surface of the globe.** 

The reverend editors having managed to conjure up 
sufficient water for a universal deluge, it may be of 
interest to see how it was finally disposed of. 

* Testimony of the Rocks, pp. 311, 312. Miller did not have 
our modern knowledge of the Glacial Period. So much water 
was transferred from the .ocean and locked up in the form of ice 
'on the land, that in the second ice epoch, the sea level was prol).* 
ably lowered 150 or 200 feejt. 



THE IRA OF THE COMMENTATORS 85 

"The means used to restore the earth to its former state, 
as a human habitation, were the following: — I. The flood- 
gates of heaven and the fountains of the deep were stopped, 
which prevented any further confluence of the waters; and 
sndly, a wind of a drying nature (perhaps the Samniel) passed 
over the earth, which produced an extraordinary degree ef 
evaporation, by which means much of the water was carried 
up into the atmosphere, while, at the same time, 3rdly, the 
waters below retired in the nature of a tide ("going and re* 
turning" the margin reads) till fhey returned to those ancient 
caverns on which the earth is built, (Ps. xxiv. 2). Thus the 
waters gradually decreased, till the ark rested on some part of 
the mountains of Ararat, in Persian Armenia. It is generally 
supposed on the summit of the highest of them but more prob- 
ably lower down, for the convenience of Noah's family, and 
of the animals, some of whom would rind it difficult to descend 
into the plain, from an eminence so great." — Cottage Bible. 

The above extract illustrates how little influence 
ihe naturalist* and geologists then had in the world as 
opposed to the views of theological writers. The con- 
troversy over the age of the earth was then in progress, 
raging intermittently at least, both vocally and by any 
convenient means of print. Though most geologists 
of that generation were Christian men, they were some- 
times assailed as being infidels and blasphemers, and 
charged with a desire to discredit the Bible. None of 
these aspersions and others like them had any founda- 
tion in fact, and were a product of ignorance, prejudice 
and misunderstanding. The commentaries and the 
religious literature of that time and later, where phys- 
ical subjects were touched upon, helped to perpetuate 
among uncritical readers many an error. With the 
f ouDger generation these illusions were being corrected 



86 THE NARRATIVE OF THE DELUGE 

in colleges and academes, where text-books on Geology 
had begun to be used in this country as early as 1840, 
and probably lectures on the subject were given to the 
students earlier. The tendency of these text-books was 
to teach views in conflict with those then commonly 
held by the multitude and many of the clergy. 

The theory of great cavernous places filled with 
water beneath the surface of the earth, continued to be 
maintained occasionally after men that were intelligent 
enough to write on different subjects, ought to have 
known better. Deep mines and borings show an in- 
ereuse of temperature to the -earth's crust of one degree 
for each 40 to 50 or more feet. " A mile and a half deep, 
the earth's interior is hot enough ta convert water into 
$&e**H; there is, therefore, no chaace for water to exist 
at the center of the earth, or anywhere near it." No 
doubt water percolates downward beneath the ocean 
bottom to zones of heated rocks and probably is the 
principal cause of volcanic explosions like those of 
Krakatoa, Bandana and Mount Felee. 

Many ^persons used to suppose from the accounts they 
were accustomed to read of the tumultuous character of 
tie Deluge, that in the nature of the case, it must have 
left marks on the surface of the earth that might come 
within the range of observation. The extract that 
follows, from an early edition of Hitchcock's text-book 
of Geology, indicates the position of geologists on that 
question and along in the early forties. After stating 
the generally accepted points of their science among 
the geologists themselves, he went on to say: 

"A few points of importance yet remain in a great measure 
unsettled. Perhaps on no one is there more diversity of 
^g^cm^ than concerning diluvial action. Indeed, the whole 



THK ERA OF THE COMMENTATORS 87 

history of opinions on this subject is very instructive. When 
the subject was first discussed, as much as 300 years ago, it 
fras assumed as a most unquestionable fact, that whatever 
marks of a deluge any part of the earth's surface exhibited, or 
even of the former presence of the ocean on the land, all must 
be referred to the deluge of Noah. Nay it was soon main- 
tained that the whole solid frame-work of the globe was dis- 
solved and re- deposited by the diluvial waters. One after 
another have these extravagancies of hypothesis been given up, 
and nearly all geologists have come to the conclusion, though 
without denying the Noachian deluge, that no cartain marks 
of that event are now to be discovered on the globe. Nay, 
She question now is, whether there is any evidence of the 
occurrence of a general flood at any epoch. Not a few be- 
lieve that no such evidencce exists; while those who admit of 
a general deluge, for the most part, regard it as having taken 
=place anterior to man's existence on the globe. The recent 
glacial theory, explained in a preceding section, makes it verf 
probable, that what has so long been regarded as proofs of 
recent deluges, has been the result chiefly of ice, with no other 
deluge but what resulted from the melting of the ice. After 
centuries of discussion, it is also beginning to be found out, that 
the facts are yet very im perfectly known, and to an examina- 
tion of these, geologists are now devoting great attention."* 

• Elementary Geology, Third Ed.. N, Y., 1845. Revision of 
$842, pp. 297, 298.— Although Hitchcock in the early forties spoke 
of geologists as giving great attention to glacial phenomena, U 
4vas not until the last decade of the century that the glacial series 
rwas fairly worked out. In part this was perhaps owing to neglect, 
but more to the unsuspected complexity of the subject and the 
general prevalence of an opposing view, called the "Iceberg The- 
ory." This postulated a deep submergence of much of the land 
that did not take place. But it was a plausible theory, rather 
hard to render obsolete after Lyell had lent to it his support. The 
Quaternary deposits, although geologically recent, are said to 
ha.YQ been the hardest of all to decipher. 



$8 THB NARRATIVE OR THE DELUGE 



Considering the controversial character of those 
times, it should not be supposed that the sentence 
beginning with the words "The recent glacial theory, ** 
skfuld have been allowed to stand long in a college 
text-book and go unchallenged when the commentaries 
and much other literature usually was making a stand 
on a .universal deluge. In effect, it looked like a denial 
of the deluge. This equivocal sentence disappeared 
from Aater editions of the book, these words being sub- 
stituted in place of it: "It is now generally admitted 
also, that ice, in the form of glaciers and icebergs, ha§ 
;£>een an important agent in producing the phenomena 
of drift. " Other than this alteration the body of the 
paragraph seems to have remained the same as before 
through all subsequent editions. 

Andrew D. White states in his work, "The Warfare 
,of Science with Theology," that both Professors Hitch- 
cock and Hill i man were often annoyed by the attacks 
<fchat were made upon them tjn the public prints at the 
hands of petty minded men. The controversy over 
^Geology did not rage in the United States nearly so 
bitterly as in Great Britain; in this country the people 
were absorbed in material development and political 
.questions, more especially in the fifties by the Anti- 
slavery agitation. In Great Britain, iu the decades of 
the thirties and forties and right after each annual 
meeting of the British Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science, the secular and religious papers of the 
kingdom fairly teemed with assaults on the geologists. 

To return briefly to the early edition of the text-book 
mentioned: "Some maintain that that the fossiliferous 
jocks were deposited by the deluge of Noah." After 
eighteen lines in type the size of this, in refutation of 



THE ERA OF THE COM SCENT ATOM 89 



}he quoted proposition, Hitchcock thought it advisable 
to append in smaller type the following remark, though 
dropped from later editions: 

"An apology is due to the geological reader for introducing 
a formal refutation of an hypothesis, which, to him, appears 
so entirely absurd. The apology consists in the fact, that many 
intelligent men are still found maintaining this hypothesis." 

This and the two other views following, quoted below 
with the refutations that followed, seem to have been 
fcept standing through all editions of that work. 

"Some theological (but no geological) writers main- 
tain that the fossiliferous rocks were not the result of 
*low deposition and consolidation; but were created at 
once with all their organic contents, just as we now 
find them. (Later, Hugh Miller had occasion to state 
that this sixteenth century hypothesis, abandoned in the 
seventeenth century, had been revived again in the 
nineteenth century by some who were opposed to the 
.geologists, in a recurring cycle of nonsense.) 

•'Some suppose that the fossiliferous strata have been 
deposited in the interval of 1600 years between the 
creation of man and the deluge." And Hitchcock 
devoted 22 lines to a refutation of that hypothesis. 

There were in evidence through most of the last 
century a class of writerscommonly called "reconcilers" 
and who are hardly extinct even yet. Some were lib- 
eral minded clergymen, some religious scientific men, 
and others exponents of science. Disturbed by the 
controversies of their time and believing the Bible te 
be an inspired and inerrant record and of the nature 
of a divine revelation (as a whole the Bible makes 
no such claims for itself) they became anxious for a 



90 THE NARRATIVE OF THE DELDGB 

compromise called a reconciliation. In regard to Gen- 
esis and Geology, every conceivable scheme was sug- 
gested and put forward, to be received by some, but 
rejected by an unsatisfied majority. Usually the story 
of the Deluge had to be reckoned with. 

Dr. John Pye Smith was at the head of a denomina- 
tional school at Homerton, near London. Being well 
acquainted with the science of his time, he saw that the 
numerous assailnats of Geology were placing both the 
Bible and religion in a false position, and hence he was 
anxions to bring about a reconciliation. In 1S39 he 
published a book which bore this long title: "On the 
Relations Between the Holy Scriptures and Some Parts 
of Geological Science," Chalmers had put forth a 
scheme of reconciliation in 1814, as good as any of 
them, but a quarter of a century later the advance that 
had been made in Geology had rendered it no longer 
adequate. Chalmers* scheme, was, of course, universal 
in its application to the Biblical account of creation; 
IPr. Smith, on the other hand, made his scheme local, 
applying to a limited portion of Asia only, "fitted up 
for most glorious purposes," the creation and first abode 
of man. He discussed all points then in dispute with 
ability and candor, and his book, occasionally enlarged, 
went through five editions in England, and one edition 
was printed in this country. But his views failed of 
any general acceptance. 

Dr. Smith made the Deluge partial, covering only 
such portion of the earth as he supposed had then been 
overspread by the human race. He appears also to* 
have been one of the first theologians of the century to 
raise a protest against the idea of a universal deluge, 
then generally being maintained. In regard to the 



TUB ERA OF THE COMMENTATORS 9& 

_,-. ''''' * " '' ' ' »j ' » 

manifest impossibility of collecting specimens of all 
kinds of land animals from all parts of the world* 
something that the advocates of a uuiversal deluge 
maintained had necessarily been done, he raised this 
decided protest: 

"We cannot represent 10 ourselves the idea of all land 
animals being brought into one small spot, from the polar 
regions, the torrid zone, and all other climates of Asia, Africa, 
Europe and America, Australia and the thousands of islands— 
their preservation and provision, and the final disposal of 
them — without bringing up the idea of miracles more stupend- 
ous than any that are recorded in Scripture. The great de- 
cisive miracle of Christianity — the resurrection of the Lor4 
Jesus — sinks down before it. " 

Between 1830 and the middle of the century numer- 
ous works began appearing calculated to dissipate much 
of the prevailing ignorance, and to prepare English 
speaking people for the reception of much of the wider 
stock of knowledge of the last half of the century « 
j^mong these publications were Ly ell's Principles of 
geology; Mantel Ts Wonders of Geology; WhewelPs 
History of the Inductive Sciences; Agassiz's Glacial 
Studies; Humboldt's Cosmos; Vestiges of the Natural 
History of Creation, an anonymous evolutionary work 
published in 1844; Kitto's Cyclopedia of Biblical Liter- 
ature; Darwin's Voyage in the Beagle, and some book* 
-by Hugh Miller and others. 



$g THE ^NARRATIVE OF THE DEI&OS 



mi. 

THE COIWROVERBY OVER A UNIVERSAL DELUGE. 

NGTWi-itHbTAttDiSG the fact that two English divines at 
the seventeenth century and such earlier geologists as 
Conybeaie and Sedgwick, and latterly Buckland, and, 
also Dr. John Pye Smith, all realized the impossibility 
of a universal deluge and argued for a partial deluge? 
a different view was still being widely .maintained by 
commentators, theological writers and the popular lit= 
erature in the forties and ^fifties, and further, the notion 
that the earth i*« only about six thousand years old was 
still quite dominant among church people. In passing, 
we shall state the opinions of Stillingfleet and Poole 
(as we find them quoted), men who were of age b| 
J|ir»Isaac Newton and who might have seen Milton and 
ftunyan. 

"I cannot see any urgent necessity from the Scripture to 
assert that the flood did spread over all the surface of the 
r earth. That all mankind, those in the ark excepted, were 
destroyed by it, is most certain, according to the Scriptures* 
The flood was universal as to mankind; but from thence follows 
do necessity at all of asserting the universality of it as to the 
globe of the earth, unless it be sufficiently proved that the 
whole earth was peopled before the flood, which J despair of 
ever seeing proved.* ' — Stillingfleet. 

"It is not to be supposed that the entire globe of the earth 
was covered with water. Where was the need of overwhelm* 
ing those regions in which there were no human beings? It 
would be highly unreasonable to suppose that mankind had 10 
increased before the deluge as so have penetrated to all the 



THfi 0OHTBOVSR8Y OVEB A UNIVERSAL DELUGE 9$ 

corners of the earth. It is, indeed, not probable that they had 
extended themselves beyond the limits of Syria and Mesopo- 
tamia* Absurd would it be to affirm that the effects of the 
punishment inflicted upon men alone applied to places where 
there were no men. If, then, we should eutertain the belief 
that not so much as the hundredth part of the globe was over- 
spread with water, still the deluge would be universal, because 
the extirpation took effect upon all the part of the globe which 
was inhabited. If we take this ground, the difficulties which 
some have raised about the deluge fall away as inapplicable, 
and mere cavils; and irreligious persons have no reason left 
them for doubting the truth of the Holy Scriptutes." — Poole. 

In both Great Britain and America rather conserva- 
live opinions dominated church circles during the first 
ibalf of the nineteenth century. In a large measure 
this was owing to a reaction or moral counter rev- 
•olutiou that had taken place against the open infidelity, 
Deism and loose morals of the eighteenth century. In 
regard to Scriptural topics, in the absence of any great 
array of scientific data, it led to an era of literalism, 
which, unfortunately hindered the dissemination of 
scientific knowledge among the people. Everything 
that was coming to light which did not square with 
Genesis, as it reads in the King James version, was 
suppressed as long as it could be. and then opposed or 
explained away, whenever the latter method was of 
any avail. In this tide of literalism the moderate views 
of Poole and Btillingfleet were set aside, if not wholly 
forgotten. 

- About the middle of the century, Hitchcock In this 
country and Hugh Miller in Great Britain found it to 
be expedient still to battle against such erroneous views 
as these: 1. The view that made the earth not mora 



94 THE NARRATIVE OF THE DELU0B 

- — — — --. < 

than six or seven thousand years old. 2. The view 
that the Deluge bad been universal as to the surface of 
the earth. 3. A popular notion that marine shells 
together with certain of the surface deposits were to be 
regarded as effects of the Deluge. 

In regard to the shells, Miller in 1856 did not think 
the matter worth refuting, merely remarking that there 
were no longer any writers of any eminence in the field 
to contend against; but Hitchcock had found it different 
in this country six years earlier. On the latter phase 
of the question Miller remarked: "I need not dwell on 
the arguments for a universal deluge which have beea 
derived from the superficial deposits. They all belong 
to an immature age of geologic science, and are of no 
yrtlue whatever.*' 

Both Prof. Hitchcock and Hugh Miller arrayed 
a^gainRt the numerous assertors of a universal deluge 
their whole scientific knowledge, which could never be 
successfully gainsaid. Both writers had already been 
preceded by Kitto's ^Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature,^ 
articles "Creation** and "Deluge." And earlier by Dr. 
|!ohn Pye Smith. Dr. Kitto's work was published ii* 
England and in this country, in two volumes about the 
years 1844-46. Altho the work bore Dr. Kitto's name, 
he appears to have had no control over the trend of its 
articles. Thus, while Dr. Kitto himself was inclined 
to regard the Deluge as having: been universal, the 
writer of that article arrayed against that conception 
every scientific fact of which he had knowledge. The 
writer on Cosmogony or Creation readily recognized 
the claims of Geology and taking note of the various 
schemes of reconciliation that had been proposed, he 
declined accepting any one. of them. 



THE CONTROVERSY OVER A UNIVERSAL DELUGE 95 

In those times it was a favorite theory with some thai 
at the Deluge sea ami land had changed places, and ia 
that way, sea shells on the land could be accounted for. 
It may be of so-ne interest to know how Hitchcock and 
Miller replied to that view or that they thought the 
hypothesis any more worthy of notice than some of the 
preposterous fancies of Granville Penu. 

"I might add to all this that the facts of geology forbid the 
idea thai our present continents formed the bed of the ocean 
at so recent a date as Noah's deluge, and that the supposition 
{hat all organic remains were deposited during the two thous- 
and years between the six days* work and the deluge is totally 
^rreconciliable with all correct philosophy. Why, during the 
time when the fossiliferous rocks were in a course of form^ 
aiion, four or five entirely distinct races of animals and plants 
successively occupied the land and the waters, and passed away 
in regular order; and these races were so unlike, that they 
could not have been contemporaneous. Who will maintain 
that all this took place in the short period of two thousand 
years? 1 am sure that no geologist will." — Hitchcock. 

"Nor will it avail aught to urge, with certain assertors of a 
•universal deluge, that during the cataclysm, sea and land 
changed their places. . . . No geologist who knows how very 
various the ages of the several table- lands and mountain chains 
in reality are could acquiesce In such an hypothesis; our own 
Scottish shores — if to the term of the existing we add that of 
the ancient coast line — must have formed the limits of the land 
from a time vastly more remote than the age of the deluge." 
— Mliler. 

Such extracts as the foregoing are of interest now 
only in so far as they are illustrative of the ignorance 
upon physical subjects prevalent in the middle of the 
last century and which the authors quoted felt them- 



01 THE NARRATIVE OF THE DEUJGE 



selves called upon to oppose. They are illustrative, 
too, of the changeful history of opinions on the subject. 
At a general thing, practical geologists disdained to 
make any replies to their opponents; that were rathsr 
left to educators and exponents of the science; thus, 
Hugh Miller writing in 1856, remarked that for the 
previous fourteen years he had submitted to the assaults 
of those who were opposing Geology, without provoca- 
tion upon bis part and without reply. 

As has been remarked, the body of church people in 
the United States all through the last century, in re- 
spect to some topics (those that touched creed and 
doctrine in particular) managed to keep themselves a 
generation behind 'England. Writing in 1850, Hitch- 
•cock stated that he presumed that the majority of the 
church people of New England still preferred to hold 
the view that the earth is only about six thousand 
year* old. With some show of complaint, he stated 
that certain books designed to oppose geological science 
were then having a far wider circulation than the more 
legitimate writings of Dr. John Pye Smith and others; 
yet at the same time he could see that the errors so 
inculcated were being rapidly dissipated by the pro- 
gress of education in the colleges and academies** 

* Perhaps the reader may not he aware that what is here 
pictured educationally for the middle of the last century is being 
silently repeated in present times oyer a different issue. All el* 
derly persons know that for a generation following the publica- 
tion of "The Origin of Species," the doctrine of Evolution was 
vehemently opposed by most of the churches, and many books 
and innumerable articles were published in opposition to the do 
trine. The universities gave this scientific hypothesis a favorable 
reception and toward the close of the century the controversy 
t>egan to die out. During the new century several books used ie 
the nigh schools now assume and teach the evolutionary view* 



THE CONTROVERSY OVER A UNIVER8AL DELUGE 97 

4 * When it was found that most of the petrifactions in the 
rocks were of marine origin, not only were they supposed to be 
the result of the deluge, but a most conclusive proof of thai 
•?ent. The argument in its favor when stated in a popular 
manner to those not familiar with geology, is indeed quite 
imposing. For if the land, almost every where, even to the 
tops of some of its highest mountains, abounds in sea shells, 
this is just what we should expect, if the sea flowed over those 
mountains at the deluge. But the moment we come to exam- 
ine the details respecting marine petrifactions, we see that 
nothing can be more absurd than to suppose them the result of 
a transient deluge. Yet this view is maintained in nearly all 
fhe popular commentaries of the present day upon Genesis, 
*nd in many respectable periodicals. It is taught, therefore, 
in the Sabbath school and in the family; and the child, as he 
grows up, is shocked $o find the geologist assailing it; and 
when he finds it false, he is in danger of becoming jealous of 
the other evidences of Christianity which he has been taught. M# 

In another place in his book, Hitchcock remarks 
that at that time there were many intelligent men who 
could not see clearly why the remains of marine ani- 
mals and plants could not be referred to the deluge. 
''But they caDnot be," he said, and did not think it 
amiss to devote nearly a whole page to giving plain rea- 
sons, well known to geologists, if not generally under- 
stood by others, why the popular hypothesis could not 
be acquiesced in, and he added: "It is a theory that no 
reasonable man can long maintain after studying the 
subject." 

As this work is largely a treatise on oplnioss that 
have been held at different times in respect to the Bible 
narrative of the Deluge, at this point we shall endeavor 

* The Religion of Geology, pp. 118, 119. 



$# THE NARKATIVff 0¥ THE BKLVQW 

to seek the reasons why so late as the middle of the last 
century in thi9 country, so many persons were still 
holding to the view that marine organisms had bees 
ftfjiread over the continents by a universal deluge. 

1. In the first place this was an inherited opinion. 
it has been said that the presuppositions of religion can 
be changed only very slowly. I<alse views long held 
and gene-rally taken for granted, can hardly be argued 
down in a single generation. . They rather have to be! 
outgrown by a second and third generation, educated in 
a -different atmosphere of opinion. 

' 2. What is called a liberal education, such as the 
colleges and academies were then beginning to impart 
(the academies were much like the modem high school) 
mainly affected tlie younger generation only, and by no 
means a majority even of these, for the masses of the 
people in the northern states only had a common school 
education. The school books that they had used were 
rather barren of scientific information while the com- 
mon literature of the period was not much better. Th* 
masses of the people were, in general, left just where* 
they were educationally, when through with suck 
>&hoolitig as they had been able to obtain. The masses, 
therefore, knew little or nothing of the teachings of 
Geology, and even where some adult persons who had 
never attended a college or academy, did possess a little 
knowledge of that kind, it had never been obtained in 
the common schools. 

3. The theological controversy over the age of the 
earth and a universal deluge had not as yet subsided, 
and in fact, as late as 1856 Hugh Miller had to argue 
against, both conceptions; as Hitchcock had done slat 
years previously. Cburch people w£re still largely 



THE CONTROVERSY OVER A UNIVERSAL DELUGE 9% 

-T " ■« 

living under the influence of Us«her's chronology and 
the commentators, to say nothing of much theological 
literature. Then there was the influence of the books 
specially written to oppose geological science which 
then had a considerable circulation but of which now 
we know but little more besides some of the titles they 
jlfore. 

4. Another factor to be considered was a very com* 
-jhon view of the Bible then widely prevalent and take* 
for granted, something rather different from present 
day conceptions, excepting in the cane of extremists* 
Much was then accorded to the Bible which it neither 
■is nor claim a to be. Among these conceptions were the 
fheories that the Scriptures are totally inerrant, that is, 
containing not the Least mixture of error, arid also 
*hat these writings are verbally inspired, or the view 
vhat the Almighty had, in some way or other, dictated 
every word and sentence. Another common opinion 
then was that the various persons whose names were 
connected with different books of the Bible were their 
real authors. Hence it followed with perhaps a major* 
Sty of church people and the clergy m this country in 
fhe forties that if the Bible said plainly in its very first 
chapter that the earth was made in six days, so it was, 
and if it was explicitly said in -Genesis that the Flood 
had been universal, it must have been so, whatever the 
geologists had found, or supposed they had found, that 
had the appearance of proving the contrary. 

5. Anothrr factor was the psychic condition of the 
nation at that time. In its intellectual advancement a 
nation is much like an individual. Just as the young 
credulously entertain various ideas that in later stages 
.of life, with maturity and reflection, they readily ca»? 



100 THS NARRATIVE OF THK DELUOS 

-—— — — — — ^, 

s«ide as youthful errors, so a nation in generations of 
national maturity will begin spontaniously to reject its 
mythology , in which earlier generations had more or 
teas firmly believed. The process begins with the in- 
tellectual classes and gradually works downward thru 
the various grades of society. This country is not now 
in the same psychical stage by far as was the generation 
that was middle aged at the outbreak of the Civil war. 
£he accumulation of knowledge, inventions, and nation- 
al growth and other factors have produced correspond- 
ing intellectual changes. 

Those theologians who looked upon Geology witb 
disfavor were apt to say that it was a science founded 
upon appearances rather than facts; that the science 
hr\6 nut a single valid argument to support it; and thai 
its deductions contradicted the Bible. Of the geologists 
*phey said they disagreed with one another; that what 
one laboriously built up auother tore down. They 
would therefore hold to the plain literal meaning of 
the Scriptures and reject these presumptions innova- 
tions. It was true that when the science was new and 
undergoing investigation, there were disagreements 
among the geologists in regard to the methods of Datura 
amidst a general unanimity of opinion among them as 
to the main principles of their science. 

A question that now, more than ever before, began 
to embarrass the assertors of a universal deluge was 
one that came within the realm of zoology, or that 
which related to the capacity of the ark to contain the 
required number of specimens of all the land animals 
on the globe. The dimensions of the ark were approx- 
imately known and hence at different times, back at 
teast to the time of Sir Walter Raleigh, calculation* 



YMM OOBTBOVftfifiY QTOB A UKIYKBSAL DELUGE 101 

were made which went to show that there was sufficient 
soom in the ark for all the birds and animals thep 
known, and also space to provision them as was suppose 
ed, and some to spare. The commentaries used to take 
note of such calculations. The following extract will 
show how the, Cottage Bible met the difficulty in respect 
to the animals at a time when species were increasing 
..on the hands of naturalists by discovery. 

"As to the capacity of the ark to hold the various creatures 
,^be preserved, it has indeed been much disputed; but Bishop 
Wilkins has reduced the number of species of animals, which 
at first view may seem almost infinite, within very moderate 
.bounds. He reckons that they do not amount to 108 quadru- 
peds and 2co birds; and of these must be excepted such as live 
.in the waters, such as proceed from a mixture of different 
jpecies, and such as change their color, size, and shape, by 
changing their climate, and thence, in different countries, 
seem to be of a different species, when they are not. #e 
afterwards enters into a particular detail of the animals, of 
the quantity of the food necessary for them, and of the capac- 
ity and proportions of the ark, and concludes there was room* 
a *nd to spare/' 

Calculations as to the dimensions of the ark might 
differ according to which of two or more cubits »|W" e 
employed varying fr,om about 18 to about 22 inches. 
Some made the ark to have been 450 feet long, 75 feet 
wide and 45 feet high; total floor space (three decks) 
101,254 square feet. H. G. Mitchell: Length 487 feet, 
breadth 82 feet, height 48 feet; totalfloor space 11.8,68? 
.square feet. Dr. Kitto's measurement amounted to a 
length of 547 feet and a breadth of 91 feet for the ark. 

A time came in the nineteenth century when Zoology 
and Comparative Anatomy refused to listen any suck 



102 «W« 5ABRATIVS OF TH8 DKLCQB 

Attempts to reduce the number of species; on the con* 
trary their number was constantly increasing on the 
hands of naturalists by distinguishing the fact that 
what had Keen supposed to be the same species of 
animals, such as the deer, inhabiting different countries, 
were found to be of different species; and again, by 
discovery, particularly iu oceanic islands like the East 
Indies. Those of the bird kind had increased to 2,373 
species when Adam Clarke wrote his commentary, and 
Hujjh Miller recognized 6,266; later still Gray estimat- 
ed them at 8,000 species. Over 2,000 mammals were 
known in the middle of the century. As for insects, 
ihey had been estimated as early as 1842 to comprise; 
550,000 though Hitchcock in 1850 says 120,000. V 

In the controversy over a universal deluge, and in 
the interest of one taken to have been merely partial, 
both Hitchcock and Hugh Miller cited what had be- 
come known of zoological and botanical provinces on 
the earth, to which animals and plants are generally 
restricted. "It is inevitable death" saysHitchcock, u for 
most species to venture beyond certain limits. If 
tropical animals and plants, for instance, were to mi- 
grate to the temperate zones, and especially to the 
frigid zones, they could not long survive; and almost 
equally fatal would it be for animals and plants of high 
latitudes to tale up their abide near the equator." 

"Linnseus held, early in the last century, that all creatures 
which now inhabit the globe had proceeded originally from 
some such common centre as the ark might have furnished; 
but no zoologist acquainted with the distribution of species can 
acquiesce in any such conclusion now. We now knew that 
every great continent has its own peculiar fauna; that the 
original centres of distribution must have been, not one, but 



TH* (X>rTKOV»RBT OVXR I UNITKUAL D1LUQ1 103 

many; further, that the areas or circlet around these centres 
vast have been occupiad by their pristine animals in ages long 
anterior to the Noachian Deluge', nay, that in even the latter 
geologic ages, they were preceded in them by animals of the 
same general type. There are fourteen such areas or provinces 
enumerated by the later naturalists."* 

The conclusion of Miller in regard to the capacity of 

the ark to hold the required number of specimens oi 

all kinds of land animals, was that half a dozen arks 

would have been needed fo accommodate them all. The 

kind of Flood that many were then upholding would have 

required eight or nine times as much water as there is 

on the globe to cover all of the highest mountains. 

Such a deluge, if possible, would have been almost as 

fatal to marine forms of life as to land animals, and 

by reason of the mixture of salt and fresh waters that 

would have ensued. On this phase of the controversy 

Miller had this to say: 

"Further, in a universal deluge, without special miracle 
vast numbers of even the salt water animals could not fail to 
be extirpated; in particular almost all the molluscs of the lito- 
ral and laminarian zones. Nor would the vegetable kingdom 
fare greatly better than the animal one, Of the one hundred 
thousand species of plants, few indeed would survive submer- 
sion for a twelve-month; nor wouid the seeds of most of the 
others fare better than the plants themselves.*'! 

Those who were contending for a universal deluge 
were, to a greater or less extent, unaware of the for- 
midable physical difficulties that opposed their view of 
the matter, such as the impossibility of Noah gathering 
specimens of all kinds of animals from all parte of the 

* Testimony of the Rocks, p. 544. ♦ Ibid, p. 860 



104 TH« 9ARRATIVX OF THf DBLUG1 



earth, or of the animals leaving their several climatic 
tones and coming themselves to Noah, if that were the 
view to be held. When some became cognizant of such 
cfifficultfes they had a habit of resorting to unrecorded 
miracle. Says Miller: "There is, however, a class of 
learned and thoroughly respectable theologians who 
seem disposed to accept rather of any amount of un« 
recorded miracle, than to admit of a merely partial 
deluge, coextensive with the human family." Both 
Hitchcock and Miller had their opinions of this matter 
which will now be presented. First as to Hitchcock: 

"Some writers endeavor to show the conformity of the sacred 
history of the deluge to established natural laws, until they 
meet with some objection too strong to be answered, when they 
turn round and declare the whole occurrence to have been 
miraculous. This I conceive to be absurd, and I shall accord- 
ingly proceed on the supposition that the whole event was a 
penal infliction, brought about by natural laws; or, at least, if 
there was anything miraculous, it consisted in giving greater 
power to natural operations, without interfering with the reg- 
ular sequence of cause and effect. And does not the narrative 
leave the impression on the mind of the reader, that it was 
brought about by natural means?"* 

"To imagine a miracle without proof, merely to escape a 
fair conclusion, is, to say the least, very wretched logic."t 

Next as to Hugh Miller: "And be it remembered, 
that the expedient of having recourse to supposititious 
miracle in order to get over a difficulty insurmountable 
on every natural principle, is not of the nature of 
argument, but simply an evidence of the want of it. 
Argument is at an end when supposititious miracle Is 
introduced.' 1 



t*i 



* The Religion of Geology, p. 137. v Ibid, p. 



TH1 0U1T1WMRBY OTXS A UNIVERSAL DKLUOS 101 

Miller devoted two lecture* or chapters of his work., 
comprising about eighty pages, to the Noachian deluge, 
an index of the importance that he attached to the 
subject. Like other writers of that time he made a 
considerable use of various deluge legends. Hitchcock 
devoted one lecture to the Deluge comprising a little 
oxer thirty-three page*, entitled, "The Noachian Del- 
uge Compared with, the Geological Deluges." Miller 
knew of Hitchcock's work and took hints from it which 
he elaborated in his own clear style. Both writers 
arrayed against the conception of a universal deluge a 
-certain kind of evidence drawn from the cones of extinct 
volcanoes, the following extract being a good example: 

"In various parts of the world, such as Auvergne in central 
France, and along the flanks of Etna, there are cones of long 
extinct or long slumbering volcanoes, which, though of at least 
triple the antiquity of the Noachian deluge, and though compos- 
ed of ordinary incoherent materials, show no marks of denuda- 
tion. According to the calculations of Sir Charles Lyell, no 
devastating flood could have passed over the forest zone of 
£tna during the last 12, coo years."* 

M No wave" Miller adds, "ever dashed against their 
symmetrically sloping sides," and remarks that he had 
never seen the argument'derivable from this class of facts 
fairly met. Rome writer suggested that the rise of the 
waters may have been so equable and quiet like that 
the vegetation was not injured nor the scoria of the 
volcanoes disturbed. But here it may have been con- 
venient to forget that the evaporation of the waters is 
said to have been assisted by a wind, and this invariably 
sets waves in motion. Hitchcock in bis text-book of 

? Testimony of the Rocks, p. 353. 



106 THE NARRATIVE OF THK DBLUQ1 

' ' ' ■ ■ ————■—■» 

Geology, remarks: 'That deluge must have been for 
the most part violent and tumultuous in its action on 
the globe; for the ocean must hate flowed over the 
land in strong currents; and when it retired, urged on 
as it was by a wind, similar currents must have pre? 
failed." 

Hitchcock in this, country and Hugh Miller in Great 
Britain hedged in those who were inclined to maintain 
a universal deluge, at every point. As geologists they 
saw how impossible this view was successfully to up- 
hold, ks the general facts of science were steadily op- 
posed to it; yet at the same time, as Christian writers 
they felt that the Bible narrative must be maintained 
in some form or other, and not having the facts of the 
Higher Criticism to help them, they fell back, perforce, 
on the idea of a partial deluge, a conception by no 
mean* new. 

In adopting his explanation of the Deluge, Miller 
candidly acknowledged that what he could offer was at 
best only conjecture, and that he should "have to re* 
move from very strong to comparatively weak ground." 
His explanation was to this effect: Taking cognizance 
of the fact that the region of the Caspian and Aral seas 
is depressed a little below sea level, he supposed a slow 
downward movement of the earth's crust to have ensued 
sufficient to have let in upon that portion of Asia the 
waters of the surrounding seas and oceans that caused 
a submergence of a widely extended area of that con- 
tinent, covering all the higher hills. To the occupants 
of the ark it would appear, not that the land was sink- 
ing, but that the waters were persistently rising. The 
animals taken into the ark were such only as belonged 
to the region submerged and Miller supposed that the 



Ttf I <X>*TKoVkRST OVKR A UNIVKMAL DZLUGB 107 

huiJiHii race, descended from a literal Adam, had not 
spr«*ad any further. The Flood haviug accomplished 
its purpose, the depressed region was again elevated, 
;he waters draining hack to the oceans. 

The tragic death of Hugh Miller [see footnote p. 80] 
in December, 1856, virtually put an end to the con ten* 
tiona over Geology and the Deluge. The eulogies of 
press and pulpit, a funeral cortege the greatest in Edin- 
bnrg since the death of Chalmers in 1847, and the 
influence of his posthumous work, all contributed to 
I be matter, that of ending an unhappy controversy and 
foisting upon Protestant denominations the scheme of 
reconciling Genesis and Geology that he had advocated* 
A pause ensued; and then churchmen gradually began 
accepting the compromise that was offered, not because 
ail the theologians wanted it, (for the "period" inter* 
pretation of the ''days" of the first chapter of Genesis 
had heeu proffered long previously only to be rejected) 
but because nothing better seemed likely to be forth- 
coming. And that also involved the acceptance at 
least of the idea of a partial deluge, whether Miller's 
explanation of it was acquisced in or not. 

In the fifties the controversy had been subsiding and 
in 1856 Miller could see only the straggling remains 
left ef a once numerous body of assailants. The mass 
of church people were now either indifferent to the issue 
or in the attitude of awaiting its settlement, generally 
willing to acquiesce in any view that their pastors 
entertained. But any scheme of reconciliation between 
Genesis and Geology that might be formulated could, 
after all, only be of the nature of a compromise. 



10j8 THE NARRATIVE OF THE DELUGE 



VIII. 
AN ERA OF COMPROMISE. 

Controversies such as that over Geology and that 
which followed over the doctrine of Evolution, where 
they are long continued and call forth books and much 
other printed matter, are apt to run through certain 
Well defined phases. For a while the subject to be 
attacked attracts little or no attention save an occasion- 
al note of alarm; then follows a period of bitterly waged 
controversy before the end of which the reconciler steps 
in; lastly, there follows a gradual decline of the con- 
troversy, ending, it may be, with a compromise. 

When Chalmers, John Pye Smith, Hugh Miller and 
others elaborated their several schemes of reconciliation 
they failed to take account of three things, any one of 
which might render these schemes obsolete. 1. The 
possibility that the advance of science would render 
such scheme inadequate or untenable. (That was what 
happened to Chalmers* scheme.) 2. The law of pro- 
gressive variation of opinion. 3. The possibility that 
changed views of the origin of the book of Genesis 
might upset any such scheme of reconciliation and be 
fatal to its permanence. Now Miller's chapter on the 
"Mosaic Vision of Creation" all hinged on the suppo- 
sition that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. 

Miller's scheme of reconciliation which included a 
partial deluge, became the generally accepted one for 
decades following among church people. It was en- 
dorsed by "orthodox" scientists in this country, such at 
J. D. Dana, Joseph LeConte, Alex. Winchell and Ar* 



AN BRA OF COMPROMISE 109 

- , _ ^ 

nold Guyot, but none of these men ever pretended thai 
an exact harmony could be established between the 
account of creation in the first chapter of Genesis and 
the geological record. Dana introduced that kind of a 
cosmogony into his Manual of Geology, at the same 
time assuming the role of an apologist for its lack of 
exact parallelism with what Geology taught. As for 
the Flood he ignored it altogether. 

A large number of geologists and educators never 
accepted Miller's scheme, least of all his explanation 
of the Deluge, This last was totally opposed to Lyell's 
unifonnitarian view, that is, the supposition that in 
past ages geological agencies have never worked with 
any more intensity than they have been known to work 
during the historical period. Another school of geol- 
ogists, admitting long periods of repose, have neverthe- 
less, believed them to haye been terminated by sudden 
geologic catastrophies. However, Miller's view in- 
volved on an extensive scale what would now be called 
an "epeirogenic" movement of the earth's crust, both 
downward and upward, which no geologist would admit 
of within so short a space of time as a single year. In 
the Second Glacial epoch the Black, Caspian and Aral 
seas were probably inter-connected, but such a submer- 
gence would have involved no very great urea of land. 

In 1863 there was published in London a work called 
Smith's Bible Dictionary, really of the nature of an 
encyclopedia like the work of Dr. Kitto that we have 
mentioned. This was reprinted in this country. In 
his "Warfare of Science with Theology" Dr. White tells 
a story showing under what trammels writers of articles 
for such works sometimes found themselves placed. 
Notwithstanding all that could now so conclusively be 



110 THE WARaATIVE OF THE DELUGE 

. — — — " " ■ ■ r 

urged against a universal deluge, those who had the 
work in hand determined in their article "Deluge" 
to maintain one of that kind. They therefore placed 
\hz writing of the article in the hands of a theologian 
from whom they felt sure that they could get one of the 
kind wanted. But if this person had aforetime upheld 
a universal deluge, he had since changed his view point, 
'A^bout. the time the article was wanted it came to hand, 
teat the editors rejected it and this time placed the 
writing of a second article in supposedly safe hands, 
A* the printing the work would progress beyond the 
place in the volume where it should go into it before 
the ne«v article could be received, there was a carrying 
forward made from D to F, such as is common in refer- 
ence works, thus: "Deluge.- [See Flood.]" The second 
article arrivetl about the time needed under the letter 
Svbut it p roved to be more heretical than the first. All 
that could now be done was either to use one of these 
unsatisfactory articles or resort to the last available 
cross- reference and meantime procure a satisfactory 
article, if possible, fnom some other quarter. So the 
position of the article in the Dictionary was carried 
forward another atretch, thus: "Flood. [See Noah.]* 
The third writer, knowing what was wanted, conceded 
the point, but in a most guarded manner, and so what 
there is said about the Deluge in the work mentioned 
may be found in the article "Noab," whereas, as was at 
first intended, it should have been under its proper 
heading, "Deluge." 

President White, it should be said, did not relate this 
%tory of his own knowledge, but upon the authority of 
an informant whom he names. We have examined a 
couple of the American editions of the Dictionary, but 



AN SKA OF COMPROMI81 111 

of Inter date than 1863, and have not found the details 
of the story wholly borne out. The cross- reference in 
these editions it directly from Deluge to Noah, without 
any intermediary ** Flood." Nor does the article even 
pretend to uphold a universal deluge, but rather denies 
iu possibility. Hugh Miller's ideas are in part follow- 
ed, and the article ssys: "All the considerations point 
with overwhelming force in the same direction and 
compel us to believe, unless we suppose that a stupend- 
ous miracle was wrought, that the Flood of Noah (like 
other deluges of which we read) extended only over a 
limited area of the globe." Could the reference to "a 
stupendous miracle" be the guarded concession referred 
to above? Of course there is a possibility that a change 
was made in the next edition following the first one. 

We will here briefly refer to a certain kind of small 
books, such as were printed for Sunday School libraries. 
In this class of works, sometimes treating of Biblical 
subjects for the young, an over strong literalism was 
con mon, even to the exclusion of some of the well 
eatabliahed facts of modern knowledge. As an example! 
we remember coming across a "Life of Nosh," printed 
in 1S66, and written, we think, by a ceitain Rev. N. P. 
Kidder, possibly a retired clergyman who wrote Sunday 
School books. Everything wan literal history from the 
Creation onward*. Marine shells on the land, in Eu- 
rope and America, had been deposited in the interval 
of 1656 years between the Creation and Deluge, those 
continents not having as yet risen above the waters. 
(See p. 89). In the case of North America the Rocky 
Mountains arose first, then the Sierras and Alleghanies 
and then in turn the lower elevations. This continent- 
making process was about the time of the Deluge, er 



112 THS NARRATIVE OF TH» DELUGE 

perhRpg ft little later. The deluge was universal at to 
all land above the ocean level at the time of its oc- 
currence. Perhaps some animals were not created 
until after the deluge, but we do not remember what 
wi^ maintained in the domain of zoology. The white 
rae*, with some exception, was descended from Japheth, 
the yellow, brown and red races from Shem, .and of 
course the black race from Ham, and in this country 
down-to 1865 had inherited the curse of Cainan. No 
S^mtfay School books, in treating of natnral phenomena, 
wre willing to admitin those times, that the earth is 
nxnre than nix thousand years old. 

The question might be asked, why such an exhibition 
of ignorance so long pant the middle of the century, in 
the case of a person intelligent enough to write a book 
an d .probably preach a good sermon in his own regular 
vocation, -and at a time when he had abundant oppor- 
tunities to have known better. The theory of the ver- 
bal inspiration and total inerrancy of the Bible was 
still rather dominant at that .period, while a large 
number of the clergy of .certain denominations had 
little or no knowledge of recent scientific literature, or 
of Geology. With many there was still a lingering 
prejudice against Geology, which could be found crop- 
ping out occasionally all through the remainder of the 
century and is not wholly extinct to this day, thougk 
now comparatively rare in this country. Such writers 
were then more apt to look for help to the old com- 
mentaries and at the same time were likely much more 
familiar with writings hostile to Geology than with 
those of John Pye Smith, Hitchcock and Hugh Miller. 

The period between the close of the Civil war and 
the last decade of the century was one in which other 



AN KB A OF COMPROMIB1 113 

''reconciliations between science and religion 19 appeared 
btit by a later generation of writers than those already 
quoted. There was now less candor shown in meeting 
critical points than what bad characterized the earlier 
reconciler*, certain real difficulties being obscured by 
general statement'. The "conflict between science and 
religion" (really a collision between advancing scien- 
tific knowledge and ecclesiastical dogmas or Theology) 
was still kfpt up but it had now taken a different turn, 
the controversy being over Evolution and the Antiquity 
df Man. But a general compromise over the Deluge 
bad been attained, a partial for a universal one. We 
shall now quote Alex. VVinchell on the subject. 

"The geological evidences and the traditions of many na- 
tions concur, therefore, in testifying to the occurrence of one 
at snore great deluges since the a ppearaoce of our race upon 
the earth; and the traditions are singularly harmonious in 
reference to the occasion and principal incidents of the deluge, 
Thus, they generally agree with each other and with Moses in 
affirming, I. That the deluge was intended as a punishment 
for man's wickedness. 3. That it brought destruction to the 
ancestors of the nation perpetuating the tradition. 3. That 
one good man and his immediate relatives were saved in a 
floating vessel. 4. That certain quadra peds and birds were 
also preservad. 5. That the vessel finally rested on a moun- 
tain. 6. That birds were sent out at intervals to bring back 
indications of the retirement of the waters. We may confi- 
dently assert, therefore, that the Mosaic narrative of the 
deluge, in its esseatial features, is a correct historical state- 
ment. 

That the deluge was universal we have not similar grenade 
for believing. 1. There are no geological evidences of a 
general inundation since the advent of man. It must be ad- 
mitted, however, that a deluge which lasted bat three hundred 



114 THE IfARRATIVE OF THK DELUQB 

j i 
and sixty-four days would not have left ▼err permanent re? 
c<wds, l. If the universal inundation were caused by a 
general subsidence of the continents to the requisite extent, 
the evidences of this must still exist; but they have not been 
discovered. 3. If it were caused by the addition of the 
requisite amount of water to our globe, without a subsidence 
qf foe continents, the earth's mass would be so much increased 
as to disturb the harmonies the solar system. 4. It was im- 
possible for Noah or any number of men to gather zoological 
couples from all the various continents — still less to do it . in 
the time indicated. It is a work which has not been accom- 
plished to this day by the managers of all the zoological 
gardens of the world. $.. The animals from different zones 
could not have endured the climatie vicissitudes, especially II 
the ark rested on the summit of a mountain reaching into the 
region of perpetual snow. <6. The capacity of the ark was 
extremely inedequate for the accommodation of so many an- 
imals and a year's supply of food. 7. The waters of a uni- 
versal deluge rising five miles above the ordinary level of the 
sea coald not evaporate in three hundred and twenty* five days; 
and i£ they could, the atmosphere would be incapable of sup- 
porting them; and hence there would be no way of disposing 
&f such a body of water over the land, except by a change of 
.relative levels, which we have stated to be geologically im- 
probable. 8. The deluge may have been -universal' in 
.respect to ths descendants of Adam, and yet have been geo- 
graphically local. 9. The local character of the deluge has 
for centuries been maintained by many eminent divines, simply 
on linguistic and general grounds. 

"If it be asserted that a universal deluge, and all the ©the* 
events as formerly understood, could be accomplished by 
miraculous agency, this must be admitted; but it will he noticed 

that Moses attributes the inundation to natural agencies, "* 

—- — 

m Reconciliation of Science and Religion, N. y., 18,77.; PP« MM* 



AS ERA OF COMPROMIBI 115 

frof. Winchell, it would deem, thought it to be worth 
arhlit 00 late as the year 1877 to try to convince tornt 
backward church people that the Noachian deluge 
eould not have been universal as to the surface of the 
globe. It would not have been difficult in the decade of 
the seventies to find clergymen who preached in small 
towns aud country communities still holding the view 
that the world had been created in six literal days and 
ednsequently is only about six thousand years old. Such 
Clergyman were usually referred to as being unedu- 
cated. The majority of church people even in country 
communities at that time accepted a great age for the 
tarth, the nix days standing for "periods" of indefinite 
length, with a deluge only partial in extent. And such 
views had been attained, not so much by any study of 
such questions as from what they had noted in their 
reading was the consensu** cf educated opinion. 

Prof. Winchell was one of those scientists called 
"Bible geologists," that is, of those who believed in a 
Hcriptunal flood of some kind of other, together with a 
literal ark, j nd *ho tried to co-ordinate the first chapter 
of Genesis with the geological record, failing to per- 
ceive that such efforts could have no lasting permanence. 
Writers of that character v-erc apt to be rather 
Inconstant of opinion. In the book quoted Winchell 
committed himself essentially to the Mosaic chronology 
of Man. The very next year he was advocating its 
extension 10.500 years before Abraham for the creation 
of Adam, also advocating the theory of pre-Adamite 
races, of which he supposed the black race to be the 
existing survival. The Caucasian or white race and 
possibly the Mongoloid, he took to be of Adamic de- 
scent. A natural flood haying destroyed a part of the 



116 THE NARRATIVE OF THE DELTJG1 



Adamic race, a section that escaped it, under the ethnic? 
name of Noah, gave rise to the white race, with their 
numerous ancient traditions of a deluge. According to 
ifcis view Noah ceased to be an individual, but became 
instead, an ethnic name for a body of people. 

Prof. Winchell held a Chair of Zoology in Vanderbilt 
University, Nashville, Tenn., which at that time and 
down to 1914 was under theological control by the Meth- 
odist Church South. Southern religious papers raised 
t<n outcry against Prof. Winchell, charging him with 
hviug an Evolutionist and enemy of the plan of salva- 
tion, and consequently the president of that institution 
felt constrained to dismiss him from the position he 
held tht 1 re. This act, with the attendant circumstances, 
aroused criticism, by no means favorable to the univer- 
sity. Winchell was at once called back to the state 
university of Michigan where he could discourse free of 
theological trammels to a far larger body of students 
than at Vanderbilt University. About that time Prof. 
James Wood row was turned out of a theological college 
at Columbia. S. C, also chnrged with being an Evolu- 
tionist, but he was immediately called to a position in 
the state university in the same city. 

In the eighties the professors in the theological, if 
not the secular colleges, were rather freely suspected 
of being constrained by their positions and. environment 
to teach the students views that In the inner recesses 
of their minds they repudiated; also that such examples 
as those of Winchell and Wood row were filling these 
institutions with intellectual hypocrites. At length it 
began to be perceived that the intelligent classes were 
within the sweep of a great intellectual movement in 
Which old views were being modeled or passing *way ( 



AN ERA OP COMPROMISE 117 

and old questions, once taken for granted, were being 
re-examined. It was also seen that Theology was out 
of harmony with Science. By the end of the century 
the controversy over Evolution had about died out, and 
it was apparent that science would not recede an inch 
on the question. A great antiquity for man was becom- 
ing clearer than ever and a chronological classification 
of implements and remains was now becoming possible 
by reason of constant new discoveries. Under such cir- 
cumstances the turning of professors out of theological 
colleges, as evolutionists, became rather impossible. 

From this digression we shall naxt turn to the en- 
cyclopedias. Between the close of the Ciyil war and 
the end of the century there were published in this 
country several sets of encyclopedias. Their article 
"Deluge," usually occupying only three or four inches 
of space, was of about the same tenor in all of them and 
was probably based upon some edition of Chambers* 
Encyclopaedia that was later than Hugh Miller's time. 
The editors of these works appear to have wished to 
avoid all critical discussion of the narrative on account 
of its being a Biblical subject. The following is an 
example of the little they were willing to give: 

Deluge (through the French, from Lat. diluvium, a wash- 
ing away, a flood.) There is scarcely any considerable race of 
men, among whom there does not exist, in some form, the 
tradition of a great deluge, which destroyed all the human 
race except their progenitor. That the Noachian deluge, re- 
corded in Scripture, covered the whole earth, was the universal 
opinion until towards the close of the last century. The or- 
ganic remains, on which the science of palaeontology is now 
founded, were regarded as its wrecks, and were held to prove 
tjiat it had covered every known country, and risen over the 



128 THE HARKATlVE OF THE DELUQ9 

highest hills. Io the progress of geology, it soon became 
evident that most of the stratified rocks demanded an earlier 
origin than a few thousand years, and the influence of the 
deluge was consequently restricted to the slightly altered 
superficial deposits; but many of these were, after a few years, 
found to belong to a period vastly anterior to any historical 
epoch, and produced by long continued agencies, differing 
totally from a temporary deluge. The present tendency of 
opinion .among writers like the late Hugh Miller, is to regard 
tfce flood of Noah as partial and local, although the universality 
seems to be implied in the biblical description. 

T&&re mas more Advancement shown in England at 
•tfcat time than in this country in regard to a candid 
treatment of the topic. During a few years both prior 
and subsequent to 1880, there was published in London 
the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. t% 
was remarked as its successive large volumes appeared, 
*h reproduced in this country, that on Biblical subject* 
it was in advance of what had hitherto been common 
ia such works. A clergyman in 1882 writing concern* 
ing it in the Northwestern Christian Advocate (Chicago) 
remarked that "it was startlingly rationalistic," but ha 
admitted that the work wan the best of its kind then 
extant. Some of its Biblical articles had begun to be 
tinctured with the principles of the higher criticism 
and was about a generation in advance of the average 
encyclopedia originating in this country. (See p. 74.) 

The article "Deluge" in the Britannica is of consid- 
erable extent and its writer disdained evading critical 
discussion by referring readers to "writers like the lata 
Hugh Miller." The question of historicity was not 
thought worth discussing as it was assumed throughout 
that the narrative is not historical. As for those an- 



AH IRA OF OQMTRQMISI 11$ 

cie&t traditions upon which commentators and other 
writers had so much relied, they were brushed aside as 
being a part of primitive cosmogonies and of no histoc- 
ieal value whatever, The Assyrian legend translated 
from the cuneiform tablets by George Smith is discuss- 
ed and the question raised whether that or the Hebrew 
tradition were the older, or whether both were or were 
$ot derived from a common primitive myth. The dual 
authorship of the narrative in Genesis is also discussed* 
There is a class of encyclopedias derived from the 
Britannica called Americanized or "scissored" editiona 
which bear About the same proportions to the original 
as a Webster's Unabridged dictionary does to an acad- 
emic or school dictionary. Some articles in the latter 
are so abbreviated as to be of no value in comparison 
with the real Britannica. The following forms an ex* 
ample taken from one of these scissored editions: 

Deluge, a submersion oi the world related by various 
stations as having taken place in a primitive age, and in which 
all, or nearly all, living beings are said to have perished. By 
this definition we exclude all partial floods, and also the theory 
which would account for deluge stories as exaggerations of 
traditions of local inundations. Upon a low level of culture, 
as Von Hahn has shown, the memory of the most striking 
events is bardly preserved even for a few generations. It it 
best, therefore, to regard the story of the Deluge as a subdivi- 
sion of the primitive man's cosmogony. The problem With 
which be bad to deal was a complicated one — given the etern- 
ity of matter to acco unt for the origin of the world. The best 
solution which presented itself (and that only to the shrewder 
races) was to represent Creation as having taken place repeat- 
edly, and the world as having passed through a series of dem- 
olitions and reconstructions. (See Cosmogony.) 



120 THK NARRATIVE OF THS DELUQK 

„ ., 

The foregoing scarcely contains the gist of the article] 
in the complete Encyclopaedia Britannic*, which is 
several times longer. The form we have reproduced is 
found identical, word for word, in two editions issued 
by different publishing houses, and dated 1892 and 1898. 
Evidently the earlier scissored edition served in some 
respects as a model for the later. Turning to article 
"Cosmogony" we find it said in one of these editions 
(tha other had the forethought to leave it out) this 
statement: "The story of the flood, the two elements 
of which the extant narrative is composed, and the 
parallel traditions of other nations, particularly of the 
Babylonians, have been spoken of in the article Del- 
uge." 

It should be said, however, that in respect to some 
of the Biblical articles in these scissored editions, they 
are of a fairly satisfactory length, such as Bible, Canon, 
Israel. But why this shuffling treatment of the article 
" Deluge" in the distinctive American encyclopedias? 
We will suppose that in the later eighties or early 
nineties of the last century some one who had the com- 
plete Britannica had asked an explanation of one of 
the editorial staff of these works. Acting as spokesman 
for all of that class, he might have replied: 

"Our works are intended more for the common or 
middle class of the American people, including most 
church members, than for the comparatively few 
scientifically educated class. Consequently, in regard 
to Bibllical subjects, we have to conform, in some 
measure, to what we suppose is still popular opinion aa 
well as to what is the general trend of theological lit- 
erature. On some subjects, no doubt, the popular 
masses are being wrongly educated by our average 



AK XR4 O* COMPROMISE 121 

literature. You cannot argue some of their inherited 
beliefs down for they ha re to be outgrown. Each new 
generation in this country abates something of the ideas 
of the previous generation. Of course we understand 
perfectly well that Hugh Miller's explanation of the 
Flood could not stand critical and scientific examination 
for a moment in the light of present knowledge. You 
may call it intellectual dishonesty if you so chose, but, 
observe, we neither maintain nor deny the narrative* 
A work may be critical, apologetic or neither. Really, 
we cannot very well help matters, but may as well 
awatt a time when the public becomes more intellect- 
ually advanced than now. In fact, there is already an 
intellectual movement in progress, so deep beneath the 
surface that only the intellectual classes perceive it, 
which early in the coming century is going to result in 
certain radical changes of opinion." 

In closing these references to the nineteenth century 
attitude of American encyclopedias concerning the 
story of the deluge, we may refer to a work of nearly * 
hundred years ago, called Ree's Cyclopaedia. It was 
published in London, beginning in 1819 and comprised 
89 large volumes. Its pages were in double columns in 
type about the same size as is here used on this page, 
and the columns were of about the same width. Its 
article "I eluge" filled sbcut 22 columns, and the 
topic was treated from every point of yiew concerning 
which questions had been raised, some of which antic- 
ipated Hitchcock and Hugh Miller. The writer mainly 
quoted eighteenth century opinions, yet seemed to be 
too well informed concerning difficulties to be able to 
escape a certain degree of embarrassment. While re- 
garding the narrative as strictly historical, he finally 



122 THE KABKATlVK OF THK DBLUQ1 



•aid: "After all, whatever might be the instrumental; 
p^fsical cause of the deluge, and whatever might be 
the mode of its operation, we must on this occasion 
have recourse to a divine interposition and energy." 

Another class of popular works which have occasion 
to deal with the story of the deluge, are the so called 
• 'Bible Histories" of selections from the narrative parte 
of the Bible-,- .-written in easy language, more for young 
people than adults. Though explanations may often be 
made* their writers seem to be oblivious of critical and 
physical difficulties. Below is an extract from one of 
them. In the Tight of the precediug pages, or even of a 
school physical geography, its impossibilities need no 
particular comment. 

•*It required a long time to construct so large a vessel, and we 
may imagine how earnestly Noah sought to convert the people 
from their wickedness during the time of its building; bat they 
were so corrupt that none gave heed to the warning. When, 
at length the ark was completed, God commanded Noah to 
(enter, together with his wife, sons, and their wives, and two 
of all creatures, both great and small. Seven days thereafter a 
great rain began to fall, which continued for a period of forty 
;Iays and as many nights. The waters rose rapidly, and the 
wicked people and the creatures that were doomed to destruc- 
tion fled their homes and caves and sought high places out of 
reach of the waters. But little did this avail them, for the 
flood rose higher and higher, covering first the plains, then the 
hills and at last the highest mountain tops, so that everything 
perished not housed within the ark, and the world became still 
with death and desolation. Not a thing was visible save 
Noah's vessel, which alone rode the waves that rolled unfretted 
over the wide, wide shoreles waste, with nothing to break theif 
force against." 



ANTHROPOLOGY AND MODERN THOUGHT 123 

— 

IX. 

ANTHROPOLOGY AND MODERN THOUGHT, 

Although the subject of Anthropology has a bearing 
on the narrative of the Deluge in more ways than one, 
it raises questions that we have never seen met in any 
literature which makes any pretension of dealing with 
the Flood story as an historical event. In this connec- 
tion five questions arise. 1. The great ages of Noah and 
his family. 2. The childlessness of Noah's three sons 
until after the Flood. 3. The deriviation of all nations 
of diverse color from a single family. 3. Ham, as the 
progenitor of the Negro races. 5. The great antiquity 
of Prehistoric Man coupled with his low stage of cul* 
lure, particularly the older Palaeolithic divisions. 

In regard to the great ages of the persons represented 
as antedifuvians, the ancient nations supposed them to 
have comprised either seven or ten generations. From 
Adam to Noah there were ten generations according to 
the Hebrew version. Commenting on the fifth chapter 
©(Genesis, H. G. Mitchell, after giving substantial 
reasons showing that at this period supposed to be 
covered by its genelogical record men lived no longer 
than now, goes on to say: 

"These considerations show that from the strictly historical 
stand- point, the chapter is of little value. In realitity it it a 
more or less artificial scheme, probably suggested by the list of 
mythical kings who reigned before the Babylonian Deluge, by 
which, in the absence of actual data, the author undertook to 
connect his doctrine concerning the origin of world with the 
more historical parts of his narrative. It is net, however, a 



124 THE 2IAK&AT1VK OF THE DELUGE 

~" ■ ' - - - - l ' t- ' - l - . '■■ . ' » ' H » ". 'I I ■ JH-tU. - ' - — .1 I.. J j gl 

uier e genealogy, but as has also been shown, suggests, and wftf 
designed to suggest, ideas that made it of value to those for 
whom it was written. Indeed, in its original form it contained 
instruction on all the principle religious questions covered by 
the two preceding chapters. It taught the unity of the race."* 

Etoood Worcester, before quoted, remarks: "The 
most liberal physiologists estimate the extreme lon- 
gevity of the human race at about two hundred years; 
probably no human being has ever attained that age. 
But to the fable that human life may endure nine 
hundred or nine hundred and iifty years, physiology 
will 41 ot listen." 

"J", he last verse of the fifth chapter of Genesis reads; 
"And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah be- 
gat S^hem, Ham, and Japhetb." If this means that 
Noah was fully 500 years old when Sheni was born, and 
it does so mean (xi. 10.) then the latter was about 100 
years old at the time of the Flood and childless until 
two years after. And so with Ham and Japheth. We 
presume that the increase of a progenitor 600 years 
after his birth is capable of some sort of calculation, 
but we will only remark that the record isao widely at 
variance with the courxe of nature in relation to man, 
<that it is bo wonder that the best Biblical scholar* 
should feel constrained to pass these chapters into the 
domain of the unhistorical. 

As to the deriviation of all nations from the Noachian 
family. Louis Agassiz, a noted Swiss naturalist, took 
up his residence in this conntry in 1846. Impressed 
with the view that all nations, diverse in color and 
characteristics, could not have originated within flvet 

% TM World Before Abraham, p. 189. 



ANTHROPOLOGY AND MODERN THOUGHT 125 

thousand years, published an essay about the middle of 
the century advocating the deriyiation of each of the 
specially marked races of mankind from separately 
created pairs. That is each race had its own Adam 
and Eve. This essay stirred up some of the theologian! 
who attempted replies. Of these, Hitchcock said at 
.that time: "I have not read them all. But in respect 
to those which I haye read it has seemed to me, without 
having the least sympathy with the views of Professor 
Agassiz, that the authors have not the most remote 
conception of the principal arguments on which he 
relies derived from zoology and comparative anatomy.' 
nor do 1 believe that they can understand and appre- 
ciate them until they have studied those sciences." 

In 1869, when the question of man's antiquity had 
begun to attract some attention in this country, Or. 
Thompson of Philadelphia discussed the subject in a 
small book intended for students and other inquirers* 
Taking the more extended chronology of the Septuagint 
version, he endeavored to ascertain whether the facts, a* 
then known, could be made to fit into this longer sys- 
tem of chronology. He stated that if man had been on 
the earth as much as 10,000 years that amount of time 
defied Biblical chronology. Evidently the question of 
diverse races had its perplexities, as shown below. 

"The unchanged appearance of leading types of mankind, as 
far back as we can trace these in history, requires a consider- 
able extension of time to account for their origin, provided we 
adhere to a physiological unity of the race. Upon Egyptian 
monuments that date back from one thousand four hundred tor 
two thourand years before Christ, the Negro is depicted with 
color and features as marked and characteristic as he exhibits 
at this day. When did this type originate, which has remained 



12G THE NARKATlVK OF THE DELUQB 

unchanged for more than three thousand years? If the typt 
itself was a gradual product of time, how much time, before 
the date when it begins to appear on Egyptian monuments, 
was necessary to establish marked and unvarying features? 

"If all mankind were descended from a single pair, — and 
again, if the whole peopled earth was destroyed by the flood, 
with the solitary exception of the family of Noah, — how much 
time was required to originate peculiarities of race which can 
be traced back without variation through the whole known 
course of history? In the present state of scientific know- 
ledge, this whole subject is wrapped fa obscurity." 

As was indicated iu the extract from Mitchell's book 
the early chapters of Genesis bear marks of having 
been worked over and the position of some of the matter 
in them shifted to other connections. Thus the "story 
of the vine" (Gen. ix. 20-27) which includes ^hie** curse 
of Canaan, is thought to have been told and 'written 
originally without any reference to any flood story and 
to have followed Lamech's prophecy concerning a com- 
forting gift (presumably the discovery of wine) to come 
from his son Noah (Gen. v. 29), a verse also suspected 
of having been shifted out of an earlier context. 

The table of nations, chapter tenth, is thought in its 
original form to have been an attempt to account for 
the tribes and nations known to the Hebrews according 
to affinities of language, nor even in its present form 
does it extend beyond the three great divisions of the 
white race, Semitic, Hamitic and Aryan. 

In Slavery days in this country the fiction that the 
African Negroes are of the posterity of Ham, was en- 
couraged as some justification of the national crime of 
glavery. In the later seventies Prof. Alex. Winchell 
characterized such belief to he an absurdity. About 



ANTHROPOLOGY A!fB MODERN THOUOHT 18? 

that time a few iff the more Advanced theologians held 
the view tlmt the Bible had to do with the white race 
only, the black, red and yellow races being given up as 
people concerning whose origin nothing certain is 
known. In 1880 i'rof. Winchell published a book en- 
titled: "Preadanjites, or a 1 emonntration of Men be- 
fore Adam." In speaking of the impossibility of the 
evolution of the black races from those of a rudely or 
right color within a period to which traditions suppos- 
edly go back, and that Negroid races are not Hamitic, 
He said: 

"If this conclusion disturbs widely accepted beliefs, it is 
evident, prima facie, that those beliefs ought to be disturbed. 
In the light of the conclusion they are beliefs in falsehood, 
and the maintenance of them discredits both the individual and 
the common creed. I may add that Science, as such, feels ne 
concern over such disturbance. Adjustments to dogmatic fait* 
are the work of those who undertake to defend the faith." 

The foregoing is a question of Ethnology, To return 
now to Anthropology or rather Prehistoric A rcbseology. 
Attempt* *ere made by 1 r. Pchmerling of Liege in 
1834; by M. Boucher de Perthes of Abbeville in 184$ 
and 1847; and by Dr. Bigollet of Amiens in 1853 by the 
publication of their researches in cave* and terraces of 
the river gravels, to convince the scientific world of tha 
validity of three points in regard to man in Europe* 
which were the»e: 1. That man existed on that con- 
tinent in the drift age. 2. That he had been contem- 
porary with the great Quaternary animals that became 
extinct at the close of that age. 3. That the earliest 
traces of man, at least in Europe and probably in all 
countries, indicated a state of primeval savagery. 
Those were the logical conclusions to be drawn fie** 



123 THE N ARRATIV& OF TffK DELUGE 

i. .1 . 4 

these researches even if at first they were not wholly* 
maintained. Isolated discoveries had been made- at 
times in the early days of Geology, but though they 
excited curiosity and occasionally speculation, their 
significance was not understood. In England, Godwin* 
Austin made some digging in 1840, in Kent's cayern 
below a floor of stalagmite, and found human imple- 
ments iu association with the bones of extinct animals, 
*&d he was satisfied that all were con temporary r but 
kia published account of the matter attracted little 
attention. The English geologists were not ready to 
receive such revolutionary evidence, not that they wert 
ignorant of the Belgian and French publications. In the 
fifties they merely discussed matters, but in 1S58 the dis- 
covery of the Brixham cave began vending them across 
the Channel to Abbeville and Amiens, resulting about 
the year 1860 in a sudden change of opinion. 

The evidences of the science are such that its facta are 
continually accumulating. \\ hen Sir Charles Lyeli 
published his "Geological Evidences of the Antiquity 
of Man" in 1863, and Sir John Lubbock his "Prehistoric 
Times" in 1865, neither of these writers understood tha 
real character of the Glacial Period, and could present 
only a simple classification of implements and remains 
which Lubbock divided as follows: Palaeolithic or Old 
Htone Age, in which implements were roughly chipped; 
Neolithic or New Stone Age. in which an advance was 
made to grinding, polishing and fine chipping of stone 
implements; and the Bronze Age, thsdirg into the us* 
of iron. These ages were supposed to be successive and 
are such for Europe, though the late Neolithic blends 
into the Bronze age, which precedes the histojfe pa* 
riod. For the one Glacial Period of Lyell's time wa 



ANTHROPOLOGY AND MODERN THOUGHT 1S.S 

«o?r have to reckon with four Ice epochs and as many 
as three interglacial epochs. Moreover the long Palse- 
Hthic age has decomposed into as many as six sub* 
divisions. Below is a table which fairly represent* 
modern classifications. 

EOLITHIC AGE. 

Pliocene and First Glacial Epoch. 
First Interglacial Epoch. 

Elephas meridionalisand antiquus; Rhinoceros etruscus. 
Types of flint implements, if they are such: Reutelian,, 
Maffiian, Mesvinian, Strepyan. — Remains: Pithecanthro- 
pus erectus of Trinil, Java; Jawbone of Matter; Galley 
Hill Skeleton (?). 

PALAEOLITHIC AGE. 

Second Glacial Epoch. 

Second Interglacial Epoch. 

Elephas antiquus; Rhinoceros hsemiticbjeus and tichor* 
hinus; Hippopotamus, Machsedorus (sabre toothed tiger); 
Cave Lion; Hyena; species of Deer, etc. — Types of im~ 
piemen ts: Chellean, Acheulean, Mousterian. Pihdown 
skull, (Acheulean ?) Taubach teeth, Krapina and other 
scant remains. 

Remarks. -In the Acheulean epoch the climate begam 
to grow colder. The Mousterian or Neanderthal race 
seems to have lived at the beginning of the Third Glacial 
epoch and to have endured long into, if they did not sur- 
vive that ice epoch. Thus far there is no trace of the use 
of the bow and arrow. 

Third Glacial Epoch. 

Third Interglacial Epoch. 

Elephas primegenius or Hairy mammoth; Woolly rhi- 
noceros; Cave bear; Hyena; Reindeer; Great Irish elk 



ISO THE NARRATIVE OF THE DELUGE 

numerous species of deer; horse; urus; bison; musk-ox, 
—Races: Aurignacian, Solutriaa, Magdalenian. End 
of the Palaeolithic Age and of the characteristic Quater- 
nary animals. — Succeeded by the Asylian or Stag Age i% 
which the Magdalenian race disappeared. 

Remarks. — Two or three nearly complete skeletons of 
the Mousterian race have been discovered in France within 
the present century. The noted Neanderthal skull wa* 
found in 1857 and others like it in 1881. This race wat 
rjtther low in the scale of humanity. — The higher cul- 
tured Aurignacian and Solutrian races lived in Europe 
probably while the Third Glacial epoch was slowly clos- 
ing, and the Magdalen ians later. The Solutrians made 
beautiful arrowheads in the form of laurel leaves and the 
Magdalenians etched pictures of animals on reindeer horn 
*ad ivory and painted them on the walls of caves; they 
also used bone and horn implements. This last of the. 
European Palaeolithic races appears to have been swept 
from that continent by a sudden change of climate|inaugur? 
ating sharp winters and hot summers. 

MESOLITHIC AGE 

Fourth Glacial Epoch. 

Post-Glacial time for all of Europe. 

The Modern Fauna. — During the Fourth Glacial Epocl* 
a people called by archaeologists Azilian whose implement* 
approached those of neolithic types, lived in the south oil 
France near the Pyrenees. The rest of Europe appear* 
to have been uninhabited. 

NEOLITHIC AGE. 

Domesticated animals appear gathered from the Wild* 
—Shell Mound People of the Baltic Coasts; Hill top tttes 
of England; Swiss Lake Villages. 

The Mycenean Bronze Age of the Mediterranean Mtew* 



ANTHROPOLOGY AND MODERN THOUGHT 131 

ed with Megalithic monuments in the West of Europe. 
The Bronze Age lasted about a thousand years and was 
then overwhelmed by the Doric invasion about Iooob. c. 
Then the use of iron in Europe became common. 

A few words may be added in regard to the four known 
Glacial epochs of Europe. The first is not much known, since 
the more extensive icesheet of the second Ice epoch mainly 
obliterated its marks. The second Ice epoch was the longest 
and its icesheet the most extensive of all, covering a third part 
of Europe. Its interglaeial epoch was presumably longer than 
any other. The Third Glacial epoch was considerably less 
extensive than the Second in respect to its ice covered area. 
The icesheet of the fourth epoch only covered most of Scan* 
dinavia, filled the basins of the Baltic Sea and Gulf of Bothnia 
and encroached on adjacent countries to a limited extent. 

The duration of the Quaternary age has been variously 
estimated, from ioo,oco to half a million or more years. 
Perhaps Rutot is moderate with 139,000 years. 

Palaeolithic implements have been found in Egypt and some 
parts of Asia. A recent find in East Africa is a skeleton of 
Negroid type found deep in the tufa of a prehistoric lake bed* 
rich in fossil remains. The lake belonged to a Pluvial age in 
Africa, synchronous with one of the glacial epochs of Europe. 

Evidently all of the continents were occupied by tbo 
human race in an age vastly anterior to any date at 
which a literalist would attempt to place the Deluge. 
Bishop Stillingfleet despaired of ever seeing it proved 
that the whole world was occupied before the Flood, 
That was in 1662, and Hugh Miller co-incided with him 
hi 1856 and could not then be gainsaid. Even civiliza- 
tion in Babylonia has of late years been carried back 
to a period 7,000 years ago, probaly in Europe then early 
Neolithic times. The literalist who holds the delogft 



182 THS »AKBA£*VK g-JP THE DJgLU&K 

1 ^p 

story to be historical in spite of its improbabilities^ 
cot to say impossibilities, no longer postulates any date 
]Q the remote past for the occurrence of the catastrophe. 
In fact, such an event, involving the whole human 
race, cannot be fitted into an anthropological table* 
There probably has never been a time since the early 
Palaeolithic age that human beings have not existed on 
all the continents of the eastern hemisphere. The 
record supposes that at the time of the Deluge, bronze 
and iron tv.ere in use, a,nd that ten generations of men 
had Hved si nee the .creation of the world. 

T<fce.re have been, and possibly may be found still 
particularly among Pastor .Russell's sect, persons who 
maintain that there was no rain upon the earth until 
the -Deluge, and consequently no rainbow was visible 
until that time. "There are those*' says Mitchell, "wha 
undertake to defend this opinion. Few modern readers, 
however,will believe that the laws of light and the prop? 
er ties of {the at.mosphere were so different before the 
Flood from what .they h^ve been since, that in that early 
period a rainbow never followed a shower." 

In the light of Geology, with its evidences of rain, 
snow and ice, and pluvial conditions, the notion men- 
tioned is simply absurd. As Hitchcock's text-book of 
Geology is the oldest one of that science we can quote, 
we shall refer to it in the present connection. He de- 
moted several pages to the sublect of fossil impressions 
in stone of animal tracks and raindrops. 

"It is a most interesting thought, that while millions of 
men, who have striven hard to transmit some trace of their 
existence to future generations, have sunjk into utter oblivion* 
the simple footsteps of animals, that existed thoisandi, nay. 



ANTHROPOLOGY AKD BiTODERN THOUGHT 13$ 

(ens of thuusands of years ago, shouid remain as fresh and 
distinct as if yesterday impressed; even though nearly every 
other vestige of their existence has vanished; nay, still more 
strange, is it, that even the pattering of a shower at that dis- 
tant period, should (have left marks equally distinct, and 
registered with infallible certainty, the direction of the wind!" 

The ark is said to have been pitched within and with- 
out and only one window a cubit square is mentioned. 
However, some have thought this to mean a space a 
cubit in width under the eaves on both sides of the ark* 
hut this would only have given light and air to the 
upper story, leaving the two lower ones close and dark. 
How could eight persons have taken care of the animals 
for a year ? The ark is presumed to have been a flat- 
bottomed vessel merely designed to float. How could 
such a structure withstand the swells, waves, wind* 
and storms of what was practically an open ocean,, 
without invoking unrecorded miracle? Some say thai 
the Deluge was caused by rain and the rising of the 
Indian Ocean over the land. What prevented the 
waters again speedily seeking their level? How, after 
the cessation of rain were the occupants of the ark 
supplied with fresh water for nearly a year, unless sup- 
posititious miracle be brought in ? 

Between the years 1898 and 1904 there have been 
issued two Biblical encyclopedias, each in four volumes 
that are representative twentieth century works. These 
are the Encyclopaedia Biblica and Hasting's Bible 
Dictionary. The latter has had added to it since its 
completion one or two supplementary volumes. Of 
course they originated in Great Britain, but ware re- 
produced in New York. The first named work has no 
page numbers its double columns being successively 



184 THE NARRATIVE OF THIS DELUGE 

numbered, that is, two numbers to a page. Its article 
"Deluge" is quite extensive, its parts being printed in* 
deferent sizes of small type according to specialty. The 
article occupies nearly all of columns 1055-1066, and it 
dissects the flood story rather thoroughly and along 
much the same lines as that in the ninth edition of the 
Encyclopaedia Britannica. Of course no attempt is 
made to defend the narrative historically. On the sides 
of the columns there are occasional indentures in small; 
black letters, a guide to students in long articles in lo- 
cating at once special topics that they may hare seen a 
reference to in tome text-book. Here are specimens 
of these topical indentures in the Biblica's article; 
Babylonian Flood Story— Epic of GiJgamas — History 
From Be rosus— Origin of Deluge Story — P Dependent 
on J 1 . — Rainbow Episode — J 2 had no Deluge Story, 
s The article "Deluge" in Basting's Bible Dictionary 
-is not so extensive a» the other and has no indentures* 
The size of type commonly used in this work is similar 
to the smaller size used in this pamphlet for quotations* 
The Dictionary, as will be seen from the extract given 
below, candidly admits the unhistorical character of 
the deluge story, its deriviation from two writers, etc. 
The Dictionary is called conservative and the other 
radical in respect to same of the articles admitted into it. 
Both are considered standard works, the best of their 
kind at present extant in the English language. 

"That the writers and compilers of Genesis sincerely believed 
the story we need have no doubt; but in the light of scientific 
and historical criticism it must frankly be recognized as on* 
of those stories or legends which are found in the folk-lore a»4 
early literature of all peoples. n 



ANTHROPOLOGY AND MODERN THOUGHT 133* 

There was published in New York in 1909 a work in 
twelve volumes called Nelson's Encyclopaedia. Its 
article "Deluge" is not long and it does not pretend to 
treat the narrative at all as historical. It cites the 
Babylonian flood legend as containing essentially the 
*auie elements and as being an older version than the 
Genesis narrative. Taking note of the variations in 
the Biblical account, the article goes on to say: 

"It is thus impossible to conctruct from the Biblical narra- 
tive anything like a uniform and detailed account of the event. 
^Moreover, the acceptance of the story as literally and historic* 
ally accurate requires us to postulate a congeries of miracles 
hardly even to be imagined. Besides this, deluge legends are 
found in the folklore or early literature of almost every nation, 
or race of human beings; of these the story of Deucalion may 
be taken as a type. 

Within a year or two past there has been issued ac 
eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica in 2% 
volumes. We have not had access to this work as yet # 
but it can be conjectured that its deluge article is full/ 
up to the modern view-point. No tenth edition of the* 
Britannica wsa ever wholly completed. 

The newspapers usually refer to the Deluge, when- 
ever they have any occasion to refer to it at all, whicfer 
is but seldom, as if the event were an actual occurrence. 
We presume this in part is in deference to what ther 
editors suppose is still the belief of church people and 
the popular masses, (see pp. 120-121.) On the other 
hand, the modern school books ignore the Deluge end 
fire apparently unconscious that there was ever an 
alleged antediluvian worldr^both important points to 
notice in physical geography and ancient history. 



J 86 THE NARRATIVE OF THE DELUGB 

" ■'■-■■ Mr 

The only text-books used in any of the theological 
colleges that have come in our way, are the work o£ 
Frof. Mitchell already quoted; a work on textual crit- 
icism and Bennett & Adeney's "Introduction." The 
latter work says: "In other cases, as in the chapters 
on the Creation, the Fall, the Plood, etc,, the narrative 
is held to be a kind of parable or allegory, rather than 
actual history. Again, when we recognize that we have 
parables and not history, we incur no loss of spiritual 
teaching; we change the form in which the lessons are 
taught, and perhaps we add to their force and sig- 
nificance/' 

Hev. Dr. Aked, formerly of New York, but now of 
San Francisco, was quoted by the press as stating in m 
New York pulpit his candid opinion in regard to the 
historicity of the deluge story, characterizing it aa ft 
myth no longer believable by students of history mod 
science, and added: 

"We gain and do not lose when we try to learn the in- 
spiring lessons of those myths in the Bible. At least twofe 
great truths they teach— there is only one uncreated God, and 
the individual conception of a restored race on a renovated 
earth." 



THE BABYLONIAN DKLUOE LEGENDS 13? 



THE BABYLONIAN DELUGE LEGENDS. 

When Dr. J. W. Draper published "The History of the 
Conflict Between Keligion and Science" in 1873, he 
C9uld assign the authorship of the Pentateuch to Ezra 
and five companions. Speaking of the tile libraries of 
Assyria, he stated: "From such Assyrian sources, the 
legends of the creation of the earth and heaven, the 
garden of Eden, the making of man from clay, and of 
woman from one of his ribs, the temptation by the 
serpent, the naming of the animals, the cherubim and 
flaming sword, the Deluge and the ark, the drying up 
of the waters by the wind, the building of the Tower of 
Babe), and the confusion of tongues, were obtained by 
Ezra." 

"It is affirmed that one such legend, that of the Dek 
uge, has already been exhumed, and it is not beyond 
the bounds of probability that the remainder may ia 
like manner be obtained." 

What Dr. Draper in 1873 regarded as probable has 
in some measure since been realized. Two or three 
other deluge legends, variant and mutilated, have been 
found, also a picture supposed to represent the tempta- 
tion, and recently it has been announced that among 
the tablets brought from Nippur by the University of 
Pennsylvania is a record containing an account of the 
creation and the temptati( n and fall of man. While 
the making of the world and animals is represented as 
the work of the gods, a goddess (Ishtar?) created man. 
When Prof. Orr published the book we have hitherto 



ISS THK NARRATIVE Q¥ TSB DKLUQ1 

quoted, he stated that no Baby Ionian account of the fall 
of wan had been discovered which was true at the time* 
Doubtless other discoveries bearing on the book of 
Genesis are in store for the future. 

Forty years ago it was the opinion of some Biblical 
scholars that the Hebrews knew nothing of deluge* 
legends until the Captivity and that they were brought 
to* Palestine at the time of the Keturn. This view lav 
so longer tenable, since the Jehovist had the story in a 
well developed form as early as 800 b. c, and this im- 
plies that it may have beeu in existence much earlier, 
possibly in the reign of Solomon. Deluge legends are 
now supposed to haye been introduced into Palestine* 
(j, e. among the (Januanite*) about the time of Hammu- 
rabi, 2100 a. c. 

From whence did the Jewish nation obtain their 
Version of the story of the Flood? In the first place it 
is evident that the Baby Ionian and Hebrew legend* 
are not wholly independent of oue another and that the 
8 former is the older. Two views of the matter may he* 
cited.' The first -l* that the Babylonian legends had 
already become current and in written form amontr the* 
Canaanites long before the Exodus and that when the 
conquest of Palestine had been effected, the Hebrew* 
took them over, gradually purifying them from their 
original polytheistic elements. The other view is thafe 
as the ancestors of the Hebrews migrated from Babylo- 
nia, they took the legends with them at that lime. 

Prior to the early seventies there were do deluge 
legends known that had been derived from clay tablet*, 
But one ha$ come down through Josepbus and Ruse* 
bius that had been derived originally from Perosns, s> 



THK BABYLONIAN DELUGE LEGENDS 139 

priest of Babylon who lived in the time of Alexander 
the Great and later, and wrote a history of Babylonia 
lor the Greeks. This work is lost except some frag- 
ments which were preserved, because Berosus' work 
chanced to be quoted by later writers. Probably neither 
Euaebius or Josephus eyer saw the complete work but 
used intermediary writings. Josephus knew of seven 
authors who, before his time, had written concerning a 
deluge. A break seems to occur in the midst of Bero- 
sus' narrative. He is so circumstantial that it does not 
neeiri probable that he would have omitted the coming 
on of the Flood. This may be due to a later copyist. 

"The deity Kronos appeared to him [Xisuthros*| in a 
vision, and warned him that on the fifteenth day of the month 
pars us there would be a flood, by which mankind would be. 
destroyed. He therefore enjoined him to write a history ot 
the beginning, middle, and end of all things and to bury it in 
ihe city of the sun at Sippara. And to build a vessel, to take 
into it his friends and relatives, and to convey on board every- 
thing necessary to sustain life, together with all the different 
animals, both birds and quadrupeds, and to trust himself 
fearlessly to the deep. 

"Having asked the deity whither he was to sail, he was an 
swered, 'To the gods;' upon which he offered a prayer for the 
good of mankind. He then obeyed the divine command, and 
built a vessel five stadia in length and two in breadth. Into 
this he put everything which he had prepared; and last of all 
he conveyed into it his wife, his children, and hi? friends. 

•'After the flood had been upon the earth, and was in time 
abated, Xisuthros sent out birds from the vessel, which, not 
rinding any food, nor any place whereupon they might rest 

* Xisuthros, Greek name for Adram-hasis, one of the Assyrian* 
games for the Babylonian Noah. 



140 THE NARRATIVE OF TH$ DELTOE 

their feet, returned to him again. After an interval of some 
Jays, he sent them forth a second time, and they now returned 
with their feet tinged with mud. He made trial a third time 
with these birds, but they returned to him no more; from 
which he judged that the surface of the earth had appeared 
above the waters. He therefore made an opening in the vessel, 
and upon looking out saw that it was stranded upon the top of 
some mountain, upon which he immediately quitted it with his 
wife, his daughter, and the pilot. 

"Xisuthros then paid his adoration to the earth, and haying 
constructed an altar, offered sacrifices to the gods, and with 
(those who bad come out of the vessel with him, disappered. 

'♦They who remained within finding that their Companions 
did not return, quitted the vessel, wieh many lamentations, 
^nd called continually on the name of Xishthros. Him they 
yaw no more, but they could distinguish his voice in the air, 
$ad hear him admonish them to pay due regard to re 
tig ion; and likewise he informed them that it was on account 
of his piety that he was translated to live with the gods, and 
that his wife and daughter and the pilot had obtained the same 
•honor. To this it was added that they should return to Baby 
jpnia, and as it was ordained, search for the waitings at 
Sippara, which they were to make known to all mankind; 
mpreover, that the place where they then were was the land 
of Armenia. The rest having heard these words, offered 
sacrifices t> the gods, snd taking a circuit, they journeyed 
toward Babylonia. 

"The vessel being thus stranded in Armenia, some part of U 

yet remains in tke Corey rsean mountains of Armenia; and the 

people scrape of! the bitumen with which it was outwardly 

coated, and make use of it by way of an alexipharmic and an 

amulet. 

"And when they returned to Babylon, and had found the 

writings at Sippara, they built cities and erected temples, and 

Babylon was thus inhabited agaig." 



THE BABYLONIAN DfiLUOR LKQB9D8 141 

"There is much in this story which reminds us of 
ur narrative, along with much that is foreign. The 
dry, colorless style bears some resemblance to that of 
the Priestly Writer, and with reason, for Berosus also 
whs a priest and had the style which distinguishes the 
priestly annalists in all ages and countries. His narra- 
tive is almost monotheistic, in striking contrast to the 
crude polytheism of Izdubar, but we must remember 
{hat it reaches us through the hands of Church histo- 
rian*, who doubtless omitted its more objectionable 
•features. The piety of Xisuthros, his warning by Ea, 
the building of the ark with its exact dimensions, are 
all familiar enough. The sending out of the birds it 
even more conclusive. This is one of those little touches 
which prove that we are dealing with a different fornjt 
of the same tradition. The tingeing of the birds' feet 
with mud is an original feature preserved in no other 
tradition. The landing ou a mountain in Armenia, the 
•erection of an altar, *nd the offering of sacrifices alse 
perfectly agree with our account. "* 

There is also an account of a deluge bf Abydenus, 
but it is mainly based on Berosus' narrative of which it 
appears to be a shorter form. It is not known whew 
this writer lived; some suppose in the first or second 
century. Eusebius has preserved his account. 

In the year 1843, Emil Botta, French consul at Mo- 
sul, in digging into the n.ounds of Khorsabad, near 
the site of Nineveh, discovered the remains of the pal- 
ace of Sargon, the Assyrian conqueror of Samaria. In 
1847 Sir Henry Layard began excavating the site of 



* £. Worcester, Genesis in the Light of Modern Knowledge, 
pp. 330, 381 . 



142 THE NARRATIVE OF THB DELUGE 

, . . k "» ; 

Nineveh and unearthed the remains of four palaces of 
(he Ninevite kings. In 1845 he had taken to England 
aa Oriental boy named Rassam to be educated. la 
1854 another expedition was sent to the ruins of Nine- 
veh, accompanied by Kassam. This expedition un- 
earthed 3,000 tablets which were brought to London 
and stored in the British Museum. Little or nothing 
was; done with them until 1867 when George Smith, the 
A sonologist of the Museum, took them in hand and 
found that they had belonged to King Assurbanipal's 
library. This monarch was of Biblical times and reign- 
ed 668-626 s. c. 

In 1870 George Smith found in the collection twelve? 
tablets containing what is called the "Epic of Gilgfe* 
mesh" or Izdubar, a long poetic narrative, or series of 
them, loosely strung together. In part it concerns th% 
adventures of Gilgamesh and companions in anything 
hut natural worlds, while in search of an elixir of life* 
The epic contains accounts of the Creation and of th$ 
Flood, according to the rather free handling of a Baby- 
lonian poet of about 2,000, B. c The flood legend i* 
contained in the eleventh tablet, is nearly complete* 
and had 205 lines, long enough to about fill six pages of 
this pamphHt. 

According to the epic the goddess Ishtar sought t<* 
wed Izdubar, also called Gilgamesh, but was rejected 
by him. In revenge the goddess smote Izdubar with a 
disease the physicians could not cure. The friends of 
Izdubar then advised him to seek relief in other lands, 
including the under world. The Babylonians conceived 
of an "Island of the Blessed" located afar south in the 
Indian Ocean. At one time hi his wanderings Izdubar 
and companions approach in a boat this dwelling plao* 



THE BABYLONIAN DELUGE LEGENDS 143 

Odf gods, but at first was not permitted to set foot on 
shore. There came to the edge of the sea, Sit-napistim,* 
tin? translated Xisuthros o/ Berosus* narrative, who, 
with his wife occupied the island, which appears as if 
<$uite extensive. Izdubar standing in the boat, con- 
verses with Sit-napistira and asks for two things, to be 
healed of his disease, and to obtain the balm of the 
plant that insures perpetual life on earth. He is told 
that he cannot obtain either. Izdubar now asks Sit- 
napistim how lie, a once mortal of earth, came to live 
in a region of the gods and to be favored with perpetual 
life. Sit-napistim then relates the Flood story, in 
general similar to Berosus' account, but more prolix 
and with variations from it. We can only give a few 
extracts. 

Said Ut-napishtim* to Giigamesh : 
I will reveal to thee, Giigamesh, a precious matter, 
And the decree of the gods I will relate to thee, 
Surippak, a city known to thee, 
Lying on the bank of the Euphrates, — 
When that city had become old, the gods in its midst, 
The great gods, were moved in their hearts to cause a floods 

The flood is represented as having been brought on 
the earth by Marduk or Bel,f the god of the land, and 
other gods conferring with him. These gods had been 
dwelling in Surippak, the seaport city of Babylon, and 
were aware of the wickedness of the inhabitants, if that 
were the cause of the meditated destruction. Lut Eat 
the god of the waters, was not consenting to this pro- 

* Sit-naplstim, Ut-napishtim and Pir-napishtim, different 
spellings of the name; also Adram-hasis, Khasis-adra (Gr. Xisu- 
thros.) + The Baal of the Old Testament 



144 THE NARRATIVE OF THR DELUGE 

posed annihilation of the inhabitants and therefore he 
sought to warn Sit-napistim of the coming flood by 
indirect means, since he did not wish to act openly for 
fear of being accused by the other gods of an act of 
treachery. He therefore called out in Sit-napistim'* 
hearing: '* Fields, fields, hut, hut, take warning!" After 
this, i£a began instructing Sit-napistim in dreams to 
build a great house-boat. Then Sit-napistim prepares 
to obey instructions, but does not forget to ask, "What 
shall I answer to the town, the people, and the elders?" 
He was told to convey to them in guarded language 
warning that a dire calamity is impending during which 
the sea would be safer than the land. 

In ihis part of the epic two lines are gone and a little 
farther on eleven other lines are missing; the next 
nineteen are partially defaced, leaving a number of the 
words here nnd there open to conjecture as to what 
they may have been. It appears from what can be 
deciphered that Sit-napistim built a great house-boal 
six decks high (with the hold seven stories), and stored 
in it all of his movable possessions, all kinds of seed, 
his silver and go)d, provisions, the flesh of slaughtered 
oxen aud sheep, and living animals. The vessel is said 
to have been smeared outside and inside with bitumen. 

There are several translations of the epic, sometimes 
merely in prose form, and we will presently give both 
forms of one and the same passage for comparison. The 
translations endeavor to hold to the sense of the ancient 
writer, however the phraseology may differ when ex* 
pressed in a modern language by different translators, 
The next extract we only have at hand in prose form^ 
concerning Sit-napistim's last preparations, a warning 
of danger, and the final entering of the ark. 



r 1* H\BfL f )NI\N DttLUQK LEGENDS 14§ 

— l 

I took into the ship my whole family and my servants, 
cattle of the field, animals of the field, hand-workmen. 1 
brought them all together. Samas gave an appointed sign: 
••When he who sends the whirlwind sends in the evening a ter- 
rible rainstorm, then go into the ship and shut the door," The 
sign was fulfilled. He who sends the whirlwind sent at night 
a fearful storm. Before the day dawned I trembled, I was 
afraid to see the day. I entered the ship and shut the door. 
I gave the care of the ship to Pusur-Bel, the pilot. The great 
ark I entrusted to him. 

As in the account by Berosus the vessel needed tob* 
:7 *i8 vij?a ted and therefore required a pilot. This might 
not occur to an inland people, such as were the Jews, 
The next passage pictures the oncoming of the flood, 
which we present, first in a versified form and following 
t-hat^ in its prose form. The Babylonians had a largf 
number of deities, some of which take part in the conflict 
jjf the element**, together with the storm spirits, 
A,3 soon as morning brighteneth 

There riseth from the horizon a dark cloud. 

Ramman in the midst of it roareth; 

Nabu and Marduk go before, 

As heralds they go over mountain and plain. 

Uragal looseth the tarkulli; 

Nibib goeth forth, beginnith the conflict; 

The Annunaki bear torches [lightning] 

With whose brightness they make the land glow; 

Ramman's fury reaches to heaven 

Turning every bright thing to darkness. 

Like a battle upon men ...... 

One seeth not another; 

Men are not recognized in heaven. 

The gods fear the flood; 

They flee, they cilmb to the heaven of Aa*. 



146 THE NARRATIVE OF THB DBLUQB 

— ' ' ' ' ' ' ■ _n 

"Nibib stepped forth, swam over the banks, Rammaa's 
swelling waves rose to heaven. All the light was turned to 

darkness like a destroying storm the elements 

bore down on men. Brother could not see brother, men were 
not regarded in heaven. The gods themselves were terrified 
at the Hood, they fled, mounting up to the heaven of Ann." 

The storm which the chief gods are represented to 
have brought about to destroy Surippak 9eems to have 
gone beyond their control and to have become univer? 
sal, so far as the Babylonians conceived the world to 
extend. The other and inferior gods become terrified 
and leaving the earth, take refuge in one of the highest 
heavens, of which seven or eight were conceived to 
exist, one above another. In this refuge these gods 
are represented as bewailing the destuction on earth. 
The goddess Ishtar, however, is rather furious, de* 
scribed either as blaming herself for consenting to the 
flood or blaming the chief or ''great gods" for what 
they had done, the meaning of the poet not being clear 
at this point. But it is plain that Iabtar complains 
that her part in the creation was being brought to 
ruin. "What J have brought forth, where is it?" Sit- 
uapistim is next represented as describing his feelings 
and acts while the storm raged outside his vessel and 
then gradually subsided. 

Six days and six nights the storm raged on, the flood, the 
violent rain. When the seventh day came, the flood and the 
rain ceased. The storm that had fought the fight like a war 
chief, rested. Tho sea became narrower, the hurricane, the 
flood storm, came to an end. Then I looked across the sea, 
let my voice go forth, but all men had returned to earth. I 
opened the hatchway; light fell on my face. I sank back, 
sat down and wept. Tears flowed over my face. I leaked 



TkiSL BABYLONIAN DKLUOK LEOKMD8 14/ 

around; the world was a broad sea. Land rose twelve ells 
high. Toward the mountain land Nisir the ship took it* 
coarse. The mountain land Nisir held the ship fast and would 
not let it move from its place. 

The next passage concerning the sending out of the 
jt>irds is so strikingly similar to the corresponding epi- 
sode in Genesis as to be unmistakable. In Genesis the 
order is, first, the raven which did not return; then 
three times the sending out of the dove, the last of 
which it did not return. In Berosus there are three 
rending* forth of birds, the kinds not being specified. I* 
the older Babylonian account, we have the birds sent 
itTth three times, each time of a different kind. 

When the seventh day arrived, 

X brought forth and released a dove; 

The dove went, it returned; 

There was no resting place, therefore it came back, 

I brought forth and released a swallow; 

The swallow went, it returned; 

There was no resting place, therefore it came backj 

I brought forth and released a raven; 

The raven went, and when it saw that the water was 
drying up, 

It ate .... but it did not come back. 

The debarkation and the usual sacrifice of thedelvg* 
legends now takes place. "The gods smell the odor 
and gather like flies." Isb*ar is there and swears by 
Jier necklace that she will not forget the recent calam? 
ity. "By my necklace, I will not forget it," and she 
forbids Bel to come near Sit-uapistim's altar, "beeaos* 
he rashly caused the flood to arise and gave my dose 
over to judgment." Bel is represented as being furious. 
3t $nding that so many had survived bis deluge. He 



146 THE BTARR4TIYB OF THB DKLUQ1 

" — - jm > 

exclaims: J, Hath then any soul escaped? Not a mail 
should have escaped destruction/' Bel next accuses 
£a of treachery, and conditions seem open for a quarrel 
among the god*, but Ea makes a mollifying speech and 
J&akes a plea that if the wicked are to be punished in 
the future, let it be by pestilence, famine or beasts of 
prey rather than by a sweeping flood. Bel now relents 
and tells Sit-napistim and his wife that they are worthy 
to be translated to the region of the gods. "They took 
me afar; at the mouths of the rivers [or far beyond] 
they caused me to dwell." 

Here the most circumstantial of the Babylonian flood 
legends thus far discovered, ends. This part of the 
story fails by far of the elevated tone of the Hebrew 
version — the rainbow episode, the promise that a flood 
shall not again desolate the earth, and God's covenant 
with Noah. From the freedom of expression and lack 
of reverence toward the gods of Babylonia, the suspi* 
cion is begotten that even in that remote age, some 
2000 B. c, the literary men of that country either 
doubted or disbelieved in the deitie* concerning whom 
they wrote. 

To return briefly to Izdubar. Although he was told 
by Sit-napistim that he could not obtain the two things 
he had come to »eek, he nevertheless obtains both thru 
the contrivance of Sit-napistim'* wife. After a hyp- 
notic sleep of six days he i« given a magic food to eatr 
after which he bathes in a spring and is healed of his 
disease. Izdubar and his boatman now make a long 
journey inland to a place where the Tree of Life grows, 
or as it is called in the epic, "the plant that makes an 
old man grow young again." Izdubar obtains some* 
thing from this tree by piling up stones te reach it and. 



THE BABYLON IAN DELUGE LBGEKD8 14$ 

" ' ' ' i^— — — — »1W) 

with his boatman starts back for the seashore. On the 
way Izduhar stops to drink at a well, and seeing a 
snake he is so startled that he drops from his hand hit 
precious possession; the snake, an eyil spirit, snatches 
it and vanishes. Seemingly the tree can be visited bat 
once, and so Izduhar returns disconsolate to the vessel, 
conscious that he cannot obtain perpetual life on earths 
and sets sail for Surippak. 

Another fragment of a deluge legend came to light in 
1897 and was discovered by Father V. Scheil among 
some tablets at Constantinople that had been brought 
from Babylonia. It is only a fragment and the lines 
even of that are not entire. It wa« written by a scribe 
ofgippara. -"It purports to have been inscribed in 
the reign of King Ammizaduga (about 2140 b. c), and 
as it is a copy, no one can say how old the original 
Klood story may be." The following is the most legible 
part of the Scheil fragment: 

Ea spake the word and said to me, "Why wilt thou maker 
men to die ... I will reach out my hand to men . . . The 
deluge of which thou speakest ... whatever it may be I . * 
. . I shall have produced (in vain?). He shall be informed of 
ft ... to the end that he build . . • and he shall beget . . ,. 
that they may enter (into the ship) that Pir (napistim take) the 
oar that he may come 

Neither this fragment nor the broken lined one that 
follows seem of much account in comparison with the 
detailed narrative of Berosus and that contained in 
the Epic of Gilgamesh, as the two fragments seem to 
add nothing to what is known from them. Id 1909 
f rof Hilprecht of the University of Pennsylvania, while 
looking at some tablets brought from Nippur, took np 
* broken off piece, all that was left of one supposed 



160 Iff* NARRATIVE OF THB DELUQB 



to have measured 7 by 10 inches. The fragment pre- 
served part of twelve lines of one of its columns, the 
tpp line not being legible. Looking at the fragment ht 
caught sight of the word "a-bu-bi" (deluge) in cunei- 
form characters. Prof. Hilprecht places its date at 
about 2100 b. c. The following is what hat been made 
of it without filling in any conjectural missing words. 

2. m I will loosen 

3. it shall sweep away all men together 

4. before the deluge cometh forth 

5. as many as there are I will bring overthrow, 
destruction, annihilation. 

6. build a great ship and 

7. total height shall be its structure. 
8* It shall be a house- boat carrying what shall be 

saved of life. 
9. with a strong deck cover it. 

10. which thou shalt make, 

11. bring the beasts of the field, the birds of heaves 

12. instead of a number 
and the family 

It is evident that at an early period the deluge legend 
had branched out into various versions; that when put 
into inscribed form, where no older copy was followed, 
white the supposed general facts were adhered to, each 
scribe varied the details much according to his own 
fancy. The deluge story is thought to have been of 
Accadian rather than of Semitic origin. The ultimate 
origin of the story itself is uncertain. One says that a 
deluge legend anywhere, not based upon some local 
flood, is part of primitive man's cosmogony. Another 
has suggested that the Babylonian story was elaborated 
from an astronomical myth. Others think that the 



THE BABYLONIAN DELUGE LBQRNDS 151 

*fory may have had its origin in inundations of the 
Euphrates valley. Lastly there is the supposition that 
a tidal wave from the Persian Gulf may have destroyed 
Burippak and thus given rise to a story that subsequent- 
ly became spread over western Asia. 

tin his book, "The World Before Abraham," Prof. 
Mitchell gives a running commentary on the Biblical 
story of the Flood, the text being printed in different 
sized type to indicate different sources, and then gives 
h gereral summary of the whole which we reproduce 
**\<>w. He readily concedes the fact that the Babylo- 
nian account must be the oldest. 

"The above discussion has made clear that the Hebrew 
f tory of the Flood is composite, and that the two accounts 
interwoven to produce it present important variations. In- 
cidentally it has been shown, also, that the Babylonian story 
is a third account of the same event, differing in some respects 
from both, but most from the later of the others. This last, 
being the oldest of the three, and therefore nearest to the event 
which they all describe, must be taken into account in any 
attempt to determine the real nature of that event and the 
jdate of its occurrence. Now although this story, also, in its 
present form represents the Flood as having destroyed all 
mankind except the occupants of Ut-napishtim's vessel, there 
are indications that the original catastrophe was the destruction 
pt a city called Surippak, on the lower Euphrates. It is there- 
fore probable that a local inundation was the common founda* 
tion of the three accounts. It must have occurred long before 
2348 B. c, the date of the Flood according to the Priestly 
narrator, as appears from the fact that the hero of the event is 
one, the last, of the ten kings of the prehistoric period. This 
means that neither of the three accounts can be regarded as 
tiistorical. It does not, however, mean that they are al) alike 



152 THE HABRAT1VE OF THE DBL0GI 

valueless. When they are composed as vehicles of moral and 
religious instruction, the superiority of the Hebrew accounts 
b at once apparent. The Babylonian story is polytheistic, and 
its gods are as capricious, jealous, and as quarrelsome as those 
of the other ancient pantheons. Its hero is a favorite of one 
ot these divinities. The Hebrew tradition, on the other hand, 
even in its oldest known form, is thoroughly monotheistic, and 
its God is a being whose character commands instant and 
unmixed reverence." 

Some one has said, "If it is heresy to think ahead of 
cue's time; is it not heresy to think behind one's time?" 
In regard to changes of opinion on some Biblical topics, 
like that necessitated by Geology, there are always 
cho^e lacking iu a broad scope of intelligence, who 
cHng to the older view long after its abandonment by 
the majority of reasoning men. In view of the aban- 
donment of the narrative of the Deluge as a historical 
circumstance by the later encyclodedias, both secular 
and biblical; by some of the theological college text- 
books like those we have quoted; by scientific and much 
other literature, and by many intelligent preachers, 
we see no use in adhering to it in religious teaching or 
in Sunday School literature, as if it had been a real 
occurrence. The school boy does not find anything in 
the early chapters of Genesis confirmed in his school 
books, as these chapters present matters, a deluge and 
an antediluvian world being altogether ignored. Com 
mend the narrative as a great moral and religious story, 
not historically true to fact, given for the lessons that 
it teaches, and no objection need be urged to its use in 
the Bible class or Sunday School in that way. 



APPENDIX. 



Prof. Wright's Theory of the Deluge. 

Sometime in the middle eighties Prof. G, Frederick Wright, 
editor of the "Bibliotheque Sacra," Oberlin, Ohio, wai con- 
nected with the Glacial Division of the U. S. Geological Sur- 
vey. In the summers of 1884 and 1885 he was engaged in sur- 
veying parts of the glacial boundary in the United States. In 
1889 he published a book entitled "The Ice Age in North 
America and Its Bearing on the Antiquity of Man." Altho 
the majority of geologists in this country then held the view 
that there were evidences pointing to more than one glacial epi- 
sode, Prof. Wright rejected that view altogether and contended 
for one Ice age only, though admitting the possibility of vicissi- 
tudes other than the phenomena of the recession; but so great 
has been the accumulation of glacial data since the time men- 
tioned, that his contention has been abandoned by all geolo- 
gists, including, presumably, Prof. Wright himself. However* 
Prof. Wright's book did good service in helping to dissipate 
what remained of the Iceberg theory as opposed to the Glacial 
hypothesis, for in the work referred to he hardly allowed any 
deeper glacial submergences of the land by the sea than for 
which there exists palpable evidences. 

In the year 1900 Prof. Wright traveled through parts of 
Asia and southern Russia for the purpose of studying the loess 
loam of the regions visited, and incidentally, perhaps, though 
one might think it were the principal motive, to endeavor to 
ascertain whether the loess problem would throw any light on 
the wide-spread tradition of a deluge. In western China and 
in Tartary Prof. Wright encountered dust storms which, after 
bis return to this country, he admitted was almost enough to 
convert bim to an acceptation of Richthofen's theory that the 
loess loam is a wind deposit, fe southern Siberia he found 



154 THE NARRATIVE OF THE DELUQ3 



plains covered witn loess loam and that the deposit extended 
up on to the flanks of the Altai mountains and was present oa 
the plateaus of Turkestan and in the region of Mt. Ararat as 
much as 2,500 or even 3,000 feet above the ocean level. 
From a Russian geologist Prof. Wright learned that he had 
found flint implements, burnt stones and bones of extinct an- 
imals of Palaeolithic age in the loess bluffs bordering the river 
Dneister at Kief, 57 feet below the surface and 340 feet above 
the stream. It was upon such data, together with the com- 
parative freshness of the Aral and Caspian seas and Lake 
Balkash, which have no outlets, that Prof. Wright formulated 
a theory of the Biblical story of the Deluge, endeavoring to 
connect it with the Glacial period. 

Prof. Wrights theory was substantially as follows: la 
view of the heights to which be had found deposits of loess 
loam and gravel he postulated a deep submergence of centra! 
and northern Asia and southern Europe during the Glacial 
period, and more particularly toward the close of this period 
at which time comparatively rapid elevatory movements of 
the earth's crust began to drain off from the continents the 
submerging ocean waters. It should be said that Asia pre- 
sents no evidences of any general glaciation except locally in 
connection wtth mountain ranges. Even Siberia had no gen- 
eral icesheet during any of the Ice periods. Prof. Wright 
admitted that man was on the earth during the Glacial period, 
and had spread over a wide area oi its surface from some 
central point of creation in Asia where the climate supposedly 
remained congenial, before this presumed ocean deluge took 
place. The disappearance of some of the Quartenary animals 
together with Palaeolithic man, he thought, could be accounted 
for by a sudden inroad of the ocean waters. *'The Palaeolithic 
man of science may well be the antediluvian man of Genesis." 
Moreover it became convenient to place this presumed end of 



APPENDIX 155 

\ 

\ 
— ,_ _ „ 

the Glacial period as near to the beginning of historical time 
as possible without hazarding any definite date for the catas- 
trophe. 

Prof. Wright is more of a theologian than a scientist, and 
such persons almost habitually will use the facts of science in 
ways that the majority of professional men of science would 
hare no inclination of doing, and this, despite all the failures 
of the past. After his return to this country, Prof. Wright 
began in the summer of 1901 publishing his views and infer? 
ences in several weekly and monthly publications, the style of 
the articles being varied somewhat according to the nature of 
the publication. One in McClure's Magazine for June, looi # 
was a good type of the whole series. 

Somewhat contrary to the principles laid down in "The Ice 
Age in North America," Prof. Wright inferred a deep subside 
ence of Asia, as already stated* As to just how this submerge 
ence could constitute the definitely described flood of Genesis, 
he did not make very plain; in fact, his articles seemed to he 
shaped so as to avoid criticism as much as possible. One might 
almost suppose from ^missions that all that Prof. Wright 
intended to maintain was that the emergence of the land from 
its presumed glacial depressiou below sea level had given rise 
to the ancient traditions, the Scriptural narrative included- 
But more than that seems to have been intended. Said one 
critic: "It is evident that while he does not definitely say that 
the Genesis story of the deluge is to be accepted as historical, 
he would have that impression conveyed. . . . His purpose 
to suggest that the story is entirely historical is evident. 1 ' 
Of course there was nothing definitely said about an ark filled 
with animals and eight human beings floating upon a sea at 
the close of the Glacial period, though left to be inferred, nor 
was there any hint given that it had become a recognized fact 
that there had ensued several glacial periods. As to the close 
of the supposed subsidence we find him saying: 



156 THE NARRATIVE OF THE DELUGE 



"Id Asia the rapidity of the subsidence spoken of though so 
great that man could not adjust himself to it, might still have 
been so slow as to be almost imperceptible. Bui toward the 
close this period there were 120 years (specially mentioned 
in the Bibie as a time of warning) in which the movement was 
accelerated to such a degree that the rising waters gave point 
to the preaching of Noah. During the last 371 days of this 
period the catastrophe culminated in the facts specifically re* 
lated in the Book of Genesis, when the reverse movement 
began and cleared a space near Mount Ararat on which the 
ark could rest, and where the race could make a new start 
under more favorable conditions. ,, (McClure's Magazine ar* 
tide.) 

It could be seen at the time the articles were being published 
by anyone familiar with popular scientific literature or the 
common principles of the higher criticism, that they were sus- 
ceptible of some sharp criticisms if not really of the nature of 
attacks. A publication called "Science 7 ' was stated to have 
bandied Prof. Wright's theory rather roughly from a scientific 
point of view, but we did not see this article. 

Prof. Wright sent one of his articles to the New York In- 
dependent, a weekly publication in small magazine form. 
It was given a place in that publication, but handled rather 
critically in its editorial pages on historical and chronological 
grounds. The main argument against the theory hinged U-poa 
Scripture chronology. Allowing a variance of about a thou- 
sand years between the chronology of the Hebrew, Samaritan 
and Septuagint versions, and "taking the extreme, the flood 
must have occurred less than 3200 before Christ. The He- 
brew Bible makes it only 2350 B. c." This was ruled out on 
the ground that neither the testimony of Geology nor history 
calls for any flood at that date. By history, in this case, is 
meant Egyptian and Babylonian records which mention no 
deluge other than the utterly mythical one referred to in pre- 



APPENDIX J57 

vious pages of this work, and which the Babylonians placed 
as remote as 35,000 b. c, a date remote enough to satisfy a 
geologist. According to the Independent Biblical chronology, 
glacial geology and ancient history were all arrayed against 
Prof. Wright's theory. 

Prof. Wright replied to the Independent's criticism in its 
own pages, confining his points to the question of chronology, 
He stated that it was doubtful whether there was any Biblical 
chronology, or that the supposed chronology of patriarchal 
times was really intended for chronological purposes at all 
and cited Dr. Green's views, (ante p. 54). Thereupon the 
editor of the 'Independent made a second attack upon Prof, 
Wright's theory, charging him ,with setting aside Biblical 
chronology because he could see that it was totally inadequate 
lor his purpose, and he was further accused pf striving tq 
perpetuate a myth. In regard to that phase of his theory in 
respect to Paleolithic man, and the antediluvians, it was con- 
tended that he ha$ apparently overlooked Gen. iv, 22, which 
represents that the antediluvians were acquainted with the 
use of bronze and iron and that the suggestion mentioned was 
an absurdity. 

Prof. Wright's theory involved epeifogenic movements of 
the crust of the earth within a period which no geologisst who. 
discredited the flood story as mythical would be willing to 
indorse. Probably the most of such depressions in Pleistocene 
times occurred at the close of the second glacial epoch when 
the Black, Caspian and Aral seas were evidently inter-connect? 
ed, probably for a long period, but too remote in time to serve 
any such purpose as that here discussed. (See p. 109.) 

A few words may be said in regard to the elevation of the 
loess loam. According to a discussion of the subject by J, 
Geikie, (The Great Ice Age, 3d Ed.) the loess of middle Eu- 
rope, where data is most readliy accessible, is both a fluviatile 
and a wind-blown deposit. In the closing stages of the second 



jy>8 THE NARRASi:?3. Q& TMW DELUGE 

-•-■■-■- . . - - .... ^ 

and third glacial epochs, which doubtless involved some cen* 
turies in each case, the annual summer melting of icesheets 
and mountain valley glaciers that had invaded the lowlands^ 
produced floods on a much larger scale than modern ones. 
In some cases the river valleys are presumed to have been: 
partially filled with snow, ice and fluviatile deposits, and with 
some subsidence of the land, would have raised the turbid 
waters to a high level. So far the loess can be counted upon 
as being a glacial flood deposit. The floods having largely 
subsided, much of the deposit each year would be exposed to 
the drying effects of the sun and borne upward in dust storms 
£o higher elevations. In the mountains of Central Europe 
loess appears to have formed in that way on the sides sheltered 
from the prevailing direction of the wind, the opposite slopes 
having been swept bare qi it. As the climate changed and 
vegetation and forests again spread conditions would beoome 
the more fixed. In the dryer climate of Asia loess deposits oil 
plateaus and mountain slopes presumably represents win<| 
accumulations of many centuries. 

Prof. Wright's theory served as a literary sensation for a 
while and then dropped out of sight. We have discussed i| 
because it formed an interesting episode in Deluge literature. 
In 19 1 3 in an article on the Babylonian and Hebrew flood 
stories he maintained that the deluge of Genesis was caused bj 
the Indian Ocean rising over the land and driving the ark to- 
ward the mountains of Armenia. It seems passing strange 
that any one possessed of a wide scope of archaelogical and 
geological knowledge could be found so far along in the new 
century, maintaining that there was any ark in the case at ail, 
or that Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth were historical person^ 

-■— r- 



APPENDIX 159 



The Valian Theory of the Deluge. 

One of the last works of Isaac N. Vail, said to have been a 
geologist, was an ingenious booklet in which he advanced the 
theory that the physical cause of the Deluge was the fall of a 
vast watery ring from the sky. Vails scheme was one of those 
efforts of the last century in which an attempt was made in a 
cosmical way to bring the Biblical narratives of the Creation 
and Deluge into harmony with modern science, which we have 
said is an impossible task, since such efforts, as Hitchcock 
said of the "period" theory of the creative days, in his time, 
are "strained and unnatural." Vail first published his views, 
called the "Canopy Theory" in 1874. 

Impressed with the view of astronomers that the planet 
Jupiter is canopied with thick clouds and belts of vapor and 
its surface probably still in an eruptive state, and the well 
known fact that Saturn has rings, Vail postulated a similar 
state of cosmical conditions for the earth in seven stages and 
endeavored to co-ordinate these with the six days creation and 
story of the flood in Genesis. That the earth was once in a 
molten condition and surrounded by an immense canopy of 
mineral, aqueous and other gasses or vapors is nothing more 
than geologists have maintained since the days of Hutton and 
Playfair; but that the last of this canopy finally resolved into 
the form of aqueous rings, like the rings of Saturn, did not 
break and come down until the Deluge, and constituted that 
presumed event, is something that would not be maintained by 
any practical geologist. 

Vail is quoted as saying at one time: "Since then we have 
the declaration of Scripture that there were waters above and 
beyond the firmament; since we see waters so placed above 
the surface of other planets, and since such bodies of water 
must revolye about the central body, I claim that the earth 



130 THE NARRATIVE OF THE DELUG3 



in antediluvian times was surrounded by a huge belt of waters; 
that it was visible to the first inhabitants as the last remnant 
of waters falling to the earth. These waters originally form- 
ed in and repelled from that great laboratory, the primitive 
earth, skirted the boundaries of a vast and remarkable atmos- 
phere with which the chemist, the geologist and enlightened 
astronomer are familiar."—- "When the aqueous ring began to 
descend upon earth there must have been in the torrid and 
temperate zones a down-rush of water, but at the poles a down- 
rush of snow. This explains why we find in Siberia and other 
Northern regions bodies of mammoths and other animals that 
were suddenly engulfed in the ice." — "During the fall of the 
waters here supposed, on that part of the earth sloping toward 
the North Pole, there must have been a great rush of the 
same toward the latter. Everything that could float would 
be swept thither." 

Pastor Russell, who is regarded as a heretic by the regular 
evangelical denominations (twelve special heresies have been 
charged against him and his sect) makes use of this Valian 
theory in one of a set of six volumes called "Bible Studies." 
Pastor Russell makes the epochs covered by the geological 
record only of 7,000 years each, which gives to the world at 
the time Adam was created an age of 42,000 years, which, by 
jthe way, is not sufficient to cover the Pleistocene, or Age of 
Man. (See p. 131.) Pastor Russell is one of those who main- 
tain that there was no rain upon the earth until the Deluge 
and no rainbow visible until then (p. 132). 

Sometime in the latter part of the last century an English 
writer named Howorth produced a book called "The Mam- 
moth and the Flood," or rather there were two volumes, the 
first being devoted to accounts of what is known of the mam- 
moth and mastodon by reason of many discoveries of their 
remains, as preliminary to the other and theoretical volume. 
The first we were enabled to read, as loaned for that purpose, 



APPENDIX 161 

itrat the other book, wherein Howorth presumably elaborated 
-his theory, we never met with. We presume that the few 
preserved bodies of the mammoth and woolly rhinoceros that 
have been found enclosed in frozen mud or ice, together with 
innumerable tusks and bones in other localities in northern 
Siberia, are suggestive of their having been suddenly over- 
whelmd by a flood, followed by a sudden change of climate. 
But it does not follow that such was the manner of tbeir end. 
In all such theories as those mentioned there is likely to be a 
failure satisfactorily to account for all known facts and others 
•may soon accumulate, all of which steadily oppose the theory. 
It follows that they fail to gain the assent of the great body of 
•scientific men and students of science and history, which in 
the long run, is fatal to any such schemes. Even the "period* 5 
theory, skillfully elaborated by Hugh Miller, altho receiving 
the assent of several American scientists and most church 
people, has finally gone the way of other such schemes. 

It is needless to comment on views like those of Pastor 
Russell who sets aside the well-established facts of science. 
But such facts as the inhumation of large quantities of the bones 
of the mammoth and of several other animals up toward the 
Arctic coast lands of Siberia and Alaska, and the finding of 
the undecayed bodies of the mammoth in a few instances in ice 
4>r frozen soil, may be an interesting question to discuss. In 
some instances those who have used such data in furtherance 
of some theory have merely jumped to a conclusion from the 
known results, and inferrred sudden disaster t© a part of the 
animal world,, whereas the primal causes may have extended 
over a short geological epoch. Generally geologists have not 
reasoned in the former way. 

In the first place neither Siberia nor Alaska exhibit any 
signs of having been generally glaciated by icesheets during 
any of the several ice epochs of the Glacial period, otherwise 
called the Quaternary or Pleistocene age. In our northern 



162 TOE NARRATIVE OK THE DELUGE 

states five stages or glacial epochs have been distinguished and 
for Europe there appear to exist evidences of four. In America 
the last of these glacial epochs, called the Wisconsin stage, 
was bifurcated by a retreat of the glacial margin, followed by 
a re-advancement of the ice, in places about as far, in others a 
Little farther than before. In the long continued final retreat 
of the glacial margin northward it made as many as fourteen 
pauses or halts, between central Iowa and Lake Winnipeg, 
each halt having been left marked by morainic accumulations. 
In Europe the fourth glacial stage presumably corresponded 
with the Wisconsin stage of North America. We could not 
expect a repetition of the same phenomena on a different con- 
tinent though partially synchronous in time. In Scotland the 
fourth epoch was marked by mountain valley glaciers spread- 
ing out in district icesheets; then followed a period of low level 
valley glaciers and lastly one of high level valley glaciers. 
Between these recrudescences of both cold, humid and genial 
conditions two forests had time to grow,' fall, and their sites to 
become peat bogs. Before the close of the fourth glacial epoch 
southern Sweden became submerged to the depth of 900 feet, 
the depression probably being connected with the weight of 
the ice filling the basin of the Baltic, which, when the ice had 
meUed, becam$ a sea connected with the North Sea across 
penmark and with the White Sea across northern Russia. 
When the depressed land had been re -elevated, the Baltic Sea 
became a fresh-water lake with its surface fifty feet higher 
than the present sea, which also implies a higher elevation for 
Denmark for some time. 

Now it is not to be supposed that about the period that the 
mammoth was becoming extinct that Siberia experienced all of 
these physical and climatic conditions, but evidently some of 
them prevailed there at the close of the third and fourth glacial 
epochs. Another phase of Siberian conditions may be illus- 
trated by referring to the course of climatic changes in Middle 



APPENDIX 163 

Europe at the close of the third and to a less extent, at the 
close of the fourth glacial epoch. For a long distance to the 
south of any point reached at the fartherest extension of the 
glacial margin, the climate was profoundly affected and the 
former forests had died out. Tundra conditons probably pre- 
vailed, such as are common to northern Siberia and northern 
Alaska. This means frozen soil to a considerable depth, ex- 
cept as thawed at the surface in summer and supporting a sub- 
arctic vegetation and arctic fauna, much of the land a morass, 
and creeping movements of the soil where any slope is present. 
As the glacial margin retreated northward and the climate, 
of the tundra belt grew warmer, it changed to steppe or prai- 
rie conditions, followed in turn by the re-appearance of forests. 
Before the forests had time to spread the country was visited by 
dust storms in summer and blizzards in winter. While steppe 
conditions prevailed in a wide belt of country extending from 
central Europe westward into France, it was likely visited by 
sub-arctic species of animals in winter and more southern 
species in summer. With the smaller animals, each of these 
climatic stages in the same latitudes — tundra, steppe or forest 
conditions — had its characteristic fauna that gradually changed 
as the elimate grew warmer. By the end of this steppe climate 
of Middle Europe in the third interglacial epoch, the mammoth 
disappeared from that continent, but appears to have survived 
in Siberia through the fourth glacial stage. With the mam- 
moth, the woolly rhinoceros, etc., there also vanished from 
Europe its last Palaeolithic race called the Magdalenian. 

To return now to the mammalian remains of northern Sibe- 
ria. Those found beneath the tundras may in part belong .to 
the third interglacial epoch, but the most of the remains, in- 
cluding the undecayed bodies, to the close of the last glacial 
epoch and its vicissitudes marked by climatic changes. The 
most of these remains occur in the banks of the northwardly 
flowing rivers and on a group of islands in the Arctic Ocean, 



164 THE NARRATIVE OF THE DHLUOK 

northeast from the mouth of the Lena river. In the time of 
the mammoth these islands are supposed to have been a part 
of the mainland and the climate subject to changes, once at 
least since the close of the fourth glacial epoch, less cold than 
•at present. When the climate was changing to colder, the 
country appears to have been subjected to driving snow storms 
in winter, local land floods in the late spring from rapidly 
melting snows and probably dust storms later in the year. The 
conditions that brought about the extinction of some species of 
animals, may, in some cases, have culminated with comparative 
rapidity, instead of occupying loug periods of time. The an- 
imal remains of Siberia are not so much imbedded in a layer 
of ice as in frozen mud overlying the ice, the ice itself being 
supposed to have been originally deep accumulations of snow, 
buried by the wash of floods, and by dust mixed with wind 
driven snow. Besides the mammoth and woolly rhinoceros, 
the remains of many smaller northern animals, with driftwood, 
occur in these deposits. 

S*ysJ. Giekie: "Layers of frozen earth alternate with 
sheets of ice, and the presence in the latter of the well-pre- 
served bodies of mammoth and woolly rhinoceros indicate that 
we are here dealing with accumulations of Pleistocene age. 
It is not necessary, therefore, to suppose that all the mamma- 
lian bones met with in the superficial deposits of the far North 
are the remains of animals which somehow got frozen into 
river- ice in lower latitudes and afterwards were transported 
toward the polar regions. The mammoth and its congeners 
lived ail the year round in northern Siberia, when the cold 
was not so intense as it is now." 



APPKND1X I6£ 



Sir J. W. Dawson on Deluge Traditions. 

"A still more important speculation, arising from the facts 
.recently developed as to prehistoric men, is the possible equiv- 
alency with the historical deluge of the great subsidence which 
closed the residence of paleocosmic [Palaeolithic] men is 
Europe, as well as that of several of the large mammalia. 
Lenormant and others have shown that the wide and ancient 
acceptance of the tradition of the Deluge among all the great 
branches of the human family necessitates the belief that, in- 
dependently of the Biblical history, this great event must be 
accepted as an historical fact which very deeply impressed 
Itself upon the minds of all the early nations. Now, if the 
Deluge is to be accepted as historical, and if a similar break 
interrupts the geological history of man, separating extinct 
races from those which still survive, why may we not corre- 
late the two? The misuse of the Deluge in the early history of 
geology, in employing it to account for changes that took place 
long before the advent of man, certainly should not cause us 
to neglect its legitimate uses, when these arise in the progress 
pf investigation. It is evident that if this correlation be ac- 
cepted as probable, it must modify many views now held as to 
the antiquity of man. In that case, the modern gravel and 
loess, on plateaus and in river valleys, far above the reach of 
present floods, may be accounted for, not by the ordinary 
action of the existing streams, but by the abnormal action of 
currents of water diluvial in their character. Further, since 
the historical deluge cannot have been of very long duration, 
the physical changes separating the deposits containing the 
remains of paleocosmic men from those of later date would in 
like manner be accounted for, not by slow processes of subsi- 
dence, elevation and erosion, but by causes of more abrupt 
.and cataclysmic character. This subject the writer has referred 



166 THE NARRATIVE OF THE DELUGE 



to in previous publications, and he is glad to see that promi- 
nence has recently been given it by so good a geologist as the 
Duke of Argyll, in a late number of the Contemporary Re* 
view. "— The Story of the Earth and Man, 1887, appendix. 

Both Dawson and the Duke of Argyll were writers that 
advancing science left behind. Dawson, as well as some other 
geologists, were advocates of subsidence views, now generally 
if not entirely abandoned, except in so far as direct evidence 
warrants such belief. Traditions of deluges, it is now recog- 
nized, are scientifically and historically worthless. There is 
no such thing as a ' 'historical deluge." 

There have been in times past a number of attempts made 
to connect the Biblical story of the Deluge, either with subsi* 
dence views or with the Glacial period. We have already seen 
that the glacial hypothesis had hardly been two years before 
the public when Hitchcock is found venturing a suggestion of 
that nature, which he subsequently withdrew from his text book 
(pp. 87-88). All such attempts, however, of whatsoever nature, 
have ever proven futile. They have been of the nature of 
endeavors to bring the developing knowledge of physical sub- 
jects into seeming harmony with the early chapters of Genesis, 
forgetful of the fact that the progress of knowledge itself may 
upset the the most elaborate schemes of reconciliation. Ther 
professors in the theological institutions having come generally 
to regard those chapters as history idealized (p. 136) would 
now be apt to say, "These chapters need no'reconciliation with 
Science; this reconciliation business is all wrong." 

Before the glacial hypothesis had been developed (about 
1840) and when submergence views held sway, Sedgwick, an- 
early English geologist and contemporary of Buckland, wrotef 
"If we have the olearest proofs of great oscillations of sea 
level, and have a right to make use of them, while we seek to^ 
explain some of the latest phenomena of geology, may we noT 






APPENDIX 167 



reasonably suppose, that, within the period of human history 
similar oscillations have taken place in those parts of Asia 
which, were the cradle of our race, and may have produced 
that destruction among the families of men, which is described 
in our sacred books, and of which so many traditions have been 
brought down to us throught all the streams of authentic 
history ?" 



Huxley on the Continuity of Nature. — "But the in- 
spection of these changes gives us no right to believe that 
there has been any discontinuity in natural processes. There 
|s no trace of general cataclysms, of universal deluges, or 
sudden destruction of a whole fauna or flora* The appear- 
ances which were formerly interpreted in that way have all 
been shown to be delusive, as our knowledge has increased and 
as the blanks which formerly appeared to exist between the 
different formations have been filled up. That there is no 
absolute break between formation and formation, that there 
has been no sudden disappearance of all the forms of life and 
of replacement of them by others, but that changes have gone 
oil slowly and gradually, that one type has died out and an- 
other has taken its place, and that thus, by insensible degrees*, 
one fauna has been replaced by another, are conclusions 
strengthened by constantly increasing evidence. So that within 
the whole of the immense period indicated by the fossiliferous 
stratified rocks, there is assuredly not the slightest proof of 
any break in the uniformity of Nature's operations, no indica- 
tion that events have followed other than a clear and orderly 
sequence." — N. Y. Lectures on Evolution, 1876. 






A FEW CORRECTIONS. 

Bage 20. Near the foot of this page an unfortunate mis- 
prinr occurs which was overlooked in correcting, thus: "And 
the waters prevailed excedingly upon the earth; [fifteen cubits 
upward did the waters prevail;] and all the high mountains'* 
etc. The words here enclosed in brackets do not occur in 
that connection in the text, but below instead, as on the page 
referred to. 

Page 47. No sacrifice made by Noah in Armenia would 
have been implied as possibly having been mentioned in the 
document of the Priestly Writer, had the footnote to page 23 
been in mind when page 47 was put in type. 

Page 58. "If £ie one hundred days" etc; the number of 
days should read "one hundred and fifty. " 

Page 65. The imaginary subterranean abode that was call- 
ed Sheol should have been placed between the plane of the 
earth and the abyss of waters, according to pictured represent- 
ations, and not below them. 

Page 77. James Buckland, should read William Buckland- 
This is a case of trusting to memory for a given name and 
with nothing at hand to refer to as to that point. 

168 



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